


Risan Holiday

by winterover



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Challenge Response, Community: jim_and_bones, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:20:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterover/pseuds/winterover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk is a journalist on Risa looking for his big break. Leonard McCoy is the visiting crown prince of a distant planet. When Leonard runs away and Jim seizes his golden opportunity, they both get a little more than they'd bargained for. (An AU based on the 1953 Audrey Hepburn/Gregory Peck movie <em>Roman Holiday</em>, for the Reel Love romantic movie challenge at jim_and_bones.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Risan Holiday

**Author's Note:**

> This...got away from me, to say the least. Enjoy!
> 
> In the tradition of _Roman Holiday_ , where the country Audrey is the princess of is never named, Leonard’s planet shall remain nameless as well.

 

***

"A big assignment?" Jim Kirk’s face lights hopefully up. "Please let me do it. Please, please -"

"Do you _remember_ the last time I sent you to interview somebody important?"

"Hey, I got some great quotes on that job, Pike."

"You got drunk and started a _bar fight_ , is what you did."

"I thought a few drinks might be a good idea to loosen him up! He wouldn’t talk! I didn’t know a seventy-five-year-old man could put it away like that. And I didn’t start it, he did."

"Oh, blaming it on the subject? How well do you think that one would’ve gone over with his people?"

Taking that diplomat to the bar had sounded like an amazing idea at the time. But all too frequently, his idea of 'amazing' and Chris’s idea of 'amazing' don’t seem to line up that well. It’s probably his own fault he’s still stuck at the bottom of the ladder.

But Jim Kirk is determined not to be a fuck-up anymore. He came here to Risa to work under Chris Pike, to pay his dues and prove himself, and he will be polished, professional, passionate, hard-hitting. The way a Kirk with a press badge should be. He will live up to the reason Pike took him on at Terra Newsweb Interplanetary to begin with - that any spawn of George and Winona Kirk’s with a sense of adventure and journalistic inclinations can’t possibly fail at life.

Right.

"I swear, Chris. I’ll do anything you ask. Who is it? That actress and her three husbands? The head of that business conglomerate from Andoria? You know he’s secretly a drug trafficker, right?" He braces his hands wide on the edge of the desk and _stares_ his boss right in the eye, unblinking. Pike, to his credit, does not burst out laughing at Jim’s low-budget legal thriller dramatics. "I’ll get you the most amazing exposé you’ve ever seen. You won’t even have to put in a good word for me. When Jon Archer reads it he’ll comm you personally and _beg_ me to come back and work for him." 

He might be laying it on a little thick, but hell, Pike knows by now that Jim Kirk is all go big or go the fuck home. Only in this case, he _has_ to go big to get back, or he’ll be crawling home with his tail between his legs. He swore when he took this job that he would make something of himself, and without Pike’s approval here, there’s no future for him back there. He’ll be Kirk the small-time Iowan copyeditor forever, cleaning up other people’s scoops about elementary school renovations and footbridges over streams washed out by the spring floods. 

And in that case, maybe he won’t go back. He’s sure he could get a job in a dilithium mine somewhere. There has to be one outlying planet that still uses human labor, right?

Jim wets his lips nervously. "I know I haven’t always lived up to your expectations, but I won’t screw this one up. I promise." He can’t afford to. "Please give me the chance."

Pike leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, and Jim knows by his thoughtful gaze exactly what it is Pike is thinking. It’s what everybody thinks when they look at him - has always thought ever since he’d decided to go into this field. _Does Kirk have what his father had? Is he brave enough to put it all on the line in the name of journalism?_

"I’ll hold you to that promise, Kirk." Jim sucks in a surprised breath. "This had better be one hell of a story." Pike straightens up and starts tapping something into his console; Jim tries his best not to seem like he’s obviously sneaking a look. "You know about that prince and his entourage doing their tour of the galaxy? His planet’s bid for Federation membership is going to the vote next month."

"Yeah?" He’s read some short newsbits from Betazed and Tellar Prime. The royal family has sent their crown prince out on a months-long jaunt of the galaxy, hopping from planet to planet to charm the leaders, whose diplomats will soon convene on Earth and become the voting body. Typical propaganda stuff. It’s not even really necessary; everyone knows they’re already all heavily inclined toward voting yes, salivating over all the barely-tapped pergium deposits up for grabs.

"They’ll be on Risa by this afternoon."

Jim nods. "Of course. Are they doing a meet-and-greet?"

"Tomorrow morning, official press conference with all the Risa System outlets. In person, not by vidconference, so you will be attending and asking intelligent and _mature_ questions." Pike takes a small round press badge from the top desk drawer, swipes it over the console to load Jim’s information and permissions onto it, and tosses it to him. Grinning, Jim pins it to his shirt, though this isn’t the shirt he’d wear to a conference with royalty, anyway. He just doesn’t want to lose it the way he’d lost the last two. "I’m expecting results."

"You got it," says Jim fervently, polishing the badge with his thumb.

"No. I’m serious. If you really want to impress Archer, you’ll land an exclusive. A private interview. This story is huge right now - potential new ally for the Federation, a sheltered royal heir learning about other cultures. Everyone’ll want it." Off Jim’s disbelieving look, Pike shakes his head. "Don’t give me that. You set yourself up for this, you know. You can’t talk big in this business without having something concrete to back it up."

"He’s a _prince_ , Chris. I won’t even be able to get _near_ him."

Surprisingly, Pike smiles, his handsome weathered face creasing. Jim always feels a little better when he can get a smile out of the guy. Like he’s done something worth approving of. "Ah. And here, we run up against one of the fundamental difficulties of our profession. How, exactly, do you acquire the information you want without doing anything illegal, landing yourself in hot water or ruining your outlet’s reputation? It’s about persistence and creativity, Kirk. Two traits I know you’ve got in abundance, despite your track record. So." He gestures to the door, and Jim looks around, expecting to see someone there. It’s a moment before he realizes he’s being dismissed. "Go away and ponder that. I’ll send you the assignment details."

Jim sighs. Well, he’ll come up with an answer. Somehow. "Will do."

***

Prince Leonard’s nose is itchy.

Standing in full formal dress before all the district administrators, elected officials, liasons and diplomats, ethnic and religious representatives, and sundry other important persons of the Risan System, Leonard suppresses the urge to squirm and scratch, instead focusing on maintaining his posture, his expression of placidity and mild interest, and his even breathing. _In, out. In, out. What’s that Vulcan thing Spock told me to do? You are moooore than your bodyyyy..._

Damn it - the rush of air is intensifying the itch. It’s just inside his left nostril, like a bit of grass or pollen or something similarly irritating has decided to float in and land there at this most inconvenient of times, just to purposely aggravate him. He sniffs, nose wrinkling. He can’t be seen rubbing or scratching in public. It’s unseemly and, what’s more, improper, his mother and Nyota are constantly telling him, to even imply that a member of the royal family has bodily functions or is capable of being bothered by something as lowly and unimportant as an itch. Which is ridiculous, in Leonard’s opinion. He may be a prince, but he still eats and sleeps and shits and _sneezes_ the same as any other human being.

Undetected, Leonard wiggles his toes inside their polished black boots, trying to distract himself.

_Oh, in the name of all that’s holy, don’t sneeze. Don’t you dare sneeze while this man is talking._

"Our weather array here on Risa," says the speaker, apparently an environmental technologies specialist, "is among the most sophisticated in the Federation, providing a consistently warm and rain-free environment for approximately four hundred and five of the planet’s four hundred and seventeen days per year. The twelve rain days are scheduled at intervals to replenish natural water reserves and refresh the abundant plant life."

Suddenly, Leonard’s nose twitches, he takes in an involuntary gasp of oxygen, and - though he tries to stop it, he really does - he lets out a massive, resounding sneeze that nearly doubles him over, the sharp ornamental clasp of his belt digging painfully into his abdomen.

The conference room goes deadly silent.

Fortunately, it’s not a wet or messy sneeze, and when the thing is done the itch is gone. Leonard straightens up, touches his nose, sniffs as genteelly as he can manage, and nods an apology to the presenter, who looks equal parts alarmed and embarrassed. He doesn’t dare glance to either side, where Spock and another guard are flanking him. "Pardon me. I must have a sensitivity to something in the air."

He can practically see the alarmed mental note they’re all simultaneously making. _Something on our planet is making the foreign royal sick. What do we do about it?_

After a moment of apparent struggle to pick up where he left off, the presenter continues, and Leonard goes back to the serious business of looking interested enough, but not _too_ interested.

It takes more concentration than one might expect.

 

Leonard had always heard that Risa, the largest and most populous planet of the Risan System, was nothing but a giant party all the time, a world of pleasure and drinking and lazing around in the sun and dancing barefoot on the beaches and having as much sex as possible with any number of friendly and open-minded partners. It had sounded like paradise to a man of twenty-seven (he’s twenty-four of his planet’s years, but the Federation has a standardized Sol-based age measurement to make travel and employment easier, so he is now twenty-seven to anyone who asks) who’d grown up within the confines of the royal palace and grounds, only leaving for official events, visits to relatives and carefully monitored university classes and outings.

The only dancing Leonard ever does is formal and completely clothed, including the right shoes for the activity. The only alcohol he drinks is local wine with dinner and modest glasses of spirits from his father’s cabinet during their evening chats. And the only sex he has - well, it’s been a while, and if the wrong people ever find out about the depressingly few occasions on which he actually has managed to evade his keepers for a clandestine moment with a diplomat’s daughter or an attractive guardsman, he’d probably be in for it. He should know very well by now that he isn’t allowed to go around sticking his penis into anything that isn’t female, of excellent lineage, and legally engaged to him. 

Like sneezing, it just isn’t seemly.

All this was why he’d been looking forward to the Risa stop. He had stupidly thought for a few fleeting, excited moments that he might be able to _enjoy_ it. Maybe he’d be allowed to dance a little, choose and buy something at the market, cast off his epaulets and sash and stroll alone in the sun, get some sand between his toes. As usual, though, he’s been left looking down from his window. The embassy sits on a lofty, rocky hill overlooking a calm sunset-lit bay, reflecting the two moons and ringed by tropical trees strung with glowing lanterns. Even from all the way up here, he can make out the brightly-colored clothes and hats of the revelers far below as they wade out to the barges tethered in the shallows, their laughter floating up to his ears on the fresh sea air. Somewhere, music is playing. They’re holding hands, dancing, celebrating the moon festival he’d been thoroughly and dryly educated on earlier that day by an officious culture and recreation representative. The Lohlunat, passion of the moon.

_I get the textbook explanations,_ Leonard thinks wistfully, resting his elbows on the broad sill and half-leaning out the open window. _And they get to live it._

"Prince Leonard, be _careful._ " He turns wearily to see Lady Uhura holding out his neatly folded pyjamas. Long pants and a long-sleeved shirt, thick fabric, pale blue, buttons down the front, no pockets because why would he ever need pockets, and a stiff businesslike collar. In the middle of summer on a tropical planet.

"You know," Leonard says as he strides forward and plucks them out of her hands, carelessly stripping his white shirt off right in front of her (she turns her back on him with a roll of her eyes) and flinging it over the back of the nearest chair before pulling on the hated pyjama top and setting viciously to work on the buttons, "some people sleep in their underwear."

Nyota’s shoulders square and her ponytailed head stiffens, and he knows she knows he’s in a mood tonight. His darling cousin - his officially designated companion and assistant on this trip, since he’d refused to bring one of his ever-present and ever-helpful manservants from the palace - has had years of experience dealing with his temper, as he has with hers, but that doesn’t mean she has to be approve of it. "That sounds uncomfortable. And cold."

"And _some_ people sleep naked," he grunts as he tugs the drawstrings on the trousers into a lopsided bow, then changes his mind and pulls the bow apart, letting the strings dangle. What does it matter whether there’s a bow or not? He doesn’t give a damn, and neither should anyone else. It’s not like there’s going to be anyone in his bed to comment on it. "Which you might say makes sense in a hot and humid climate."

"Fortunately, we’re indoors with environmental controls." Nyota shoots him a look as she bustles over to the door, ruffled red silk skirt swishing, and opens it a crack. "Mr. Spock," she says politely and formally, as if Leonard isn’t perfectly aware she’s been sleeping with the guy for ages, "you may begin your sweep now. Prince Leonard, I’m giving you an extra round of vitamins with your immune booster. Full spectrum. I don’t know if you’re coming down with something, but you can’t risk it halfway through your tour."

Leonard sits down on the edge of the bed as the usual evening routine goes on around him - Spock, stiff and darkly aristocratic as always in his midnight blue uniform, begins his thorough circuit of the room, scanner in hand. Nyota turns down the plush white covers on the gigantic bed and takes the multicolored hypo capsules from their case, laying them out on a silver tray on the bedside table and ushering over the embassy staffperson who’d trailed Spock in with a plate of crackers and a glass of warm milk. Always crackers and warm milk, the kitchen of every stopping place instructed to bring them in at bedtime. He hates the taste of warm milk, and given the choice he’d probably leave the crackers, too, unless they happened to have something interesting on top, like smoked fish or soft cheese with a dab of onion preserve. But no - that wouldn’t be good for his digestion. "I sneezed once," he points out sullenly, popping the first capsule in and swiftly injecting himself in the neck without even a wince. "Doesn’t mean I’m sick."

"Sick or not, some extra vitamins can’t hurt," says Nyota relentlessly. "Eat your crackers or you’ll get an upset stomach."

"There is such a thing as a vitamin saturation point. They’ve been making me taste-test local fruit all day." 

"Well, maybe you’re allergic to one of those."

"Doubt it." He doses himself from the next two capsules, leaning back against the headboard and watching Spock check around a painting on the wall. "Seriously, Spock. You just did all this _this afternoon._ You really think some terrorist snuck into the embassy, past their guards, past _your_ guard, and rigged the room while we were out?"

Spock doesn’t even turn around as he runs the scanner up the edge of the frame. "I am simply doing my job, your highness, by following the mandate the king and queen set out for your personal security detail. Thoroughness is always preferable to negligence -" He moves to the right and shuts the window with a firm bang, as if to underscore his words - "particularly in unfamiliar environments. It is only logical." Spock glances back over his shoulder. "I suggest you eat. The probability of gastrointestinal distress from full-spectrum vitamin injections taken without food is -"

"Extremely high," Leonard cuts in. "I know." You just can’t argue with a Vulcan. It’s probably why his parents had assigned Spock to him. Leonard sets the hypospray down on the tray and takes a cracker from the plate, and Nyota gives a satisfied nod and taps the datapad she’d retrieved from some mysterious pocket somewhere inside her skirt. 

"So. Tomorrow’s itinerary."

"Oh, do tell," Leonard says, chewing unenthusiastically. "I’m busting at the seams with anticipation here."

"I don’t think this climate agrees with you at all, Leonard," Nyota observes coolly. "Oh-eight-thirty, you’ll attend breakfast with the embassy staff. Be sure not to eat too much, because you have a lunch with the prime ministry later."

"When do I not." He reaches for the milk, wrinkles his nose, and takes a sip. "Go on."

"Oh-nine-forty, you have a tour of the ocean shipping facilities at Torolo Harbor, where they will ceremonially present you with a small boat."

He perks up at this, though it’s probably too much to hope for. "Thank you. I am so touched by your gesture -"

"You will gently and regretfully decline their generous gift," continues Nyota, with a shake of her head that makes her earrings jangle.

"- But as I will shortly be leaving the planet, and my own estate regretfully does not boast the magnificent bodies of water Risa enjoys, I’m certain such a gift could be put to better use by one of Risa’s deserving fisherpersons," he finishes, monotone. He could do this in his sleep. Nyota seems pleased, though, which is good.

"At ten-hundred-forty-five, you’ll be visiting the largest wine production facility on the planet, where they will present you with a mature Risan grape tree -"

"I am so touched by your gesture," Leonard parrots, "but as I will shortly be leaving -"

"- _Which_ you will accept as a symbolic gesture of goodwill, since we are in the process of negotiating a future trade deal for Risan wines."

"- I am pleased to tell you that my spacecraft has biological stasis capabilities, and I will replant your generous and beautiful gift in the soil of my homeworld as soon as I return."

"Good. Then, by eleven-forty, you’ll be back here for half an hour, shower if necessary, change into your uniform and go over your notes, and the press conference will begin at twelve-ten."

"I am so touched by your gesture," mutters Leonard through a mouthful of cracker. "Thank you for attempting to scale the wall and photograph me in the shower. I will never forget your kindness."

Nyota chooses to ignore this, though there’s a touch of pity in her eyes. "After that, at twelve-forty-five, you’ll have lunch with the premier of the capital region and her family. You’ll wear your dark green suit for that, not your uniform."

"Thank you very much."

"At fourteen-hundred you’ll be present for the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of a new pavilion in Risa City dedicated to serving off-planet visitors."

"Charmed, I’m sure."

"At fourteen-thirty-five, you will go on a tour of the old district of the capital, with stops at several historic landmarks -"

" _Lovely_ to meet you."

"At fifteen-fifty you will meet with the heads of the Risa System business conglomerate -"

"How delightful."

"And at seventeen-hundred hours -"

Another day of meeting with people he doesn’t know or especially care about, who probably don’t give a damn about him either except as a momentary boost in entertainment and prestige, and whom he will probably never see again. They know as well as he does that he‘s useless except as an overbred showpiece to ceremonially parade around the galaxy, parroting the carefully crafted answers of his advisors. 

Another day of the same questions over and over, the mask-like smiles and flawlessly executed obeisances, the proper utensils for each morsel of food. The blue sky and green trees beckoning beyond the windows of embassies and mansions and government ballrooms as his stiff collar grips him around the neck and someone offers him a glass of wine he is to hold, but not to drink more than two sips of, because he must never lose control of himself and shame his family. Nothing to look forward to but stepping onto the ship again for another three days of vomiting and cold sweat, Nyota sitting beside him and stroking his hair in quiet sympathy, before he has to pick himself up and straighten himself out and walk smiling down the landing ramp once more.

And beyond today, another day just like it, and another, and another, _until he dies._

Leonard flops over in his bed and buries his face in the pillow. "Kill me," he says, muffled. "Just kill me now. I’m not exaggerating."

"Prince _Leonard._ "

He bolts back up in a fury. "I can’t do this anymore, Nyota! Tell them I’m in a coma. Tell them I was called home. _Damn_ it, Spock, would you _stop_ that?" Spock turns and slowly lowers his whirring scanner, his face actually registering his surprise in the twitch of one eyebrow and the minute widening of his eyes. Nyota is easier to read - she clutches the itinerary to her chest and gapes at him. Leonard could not care less. "Get out. I don’t do this often, but I’m playing the goddamned prince card tonight. I command you all to _leave._ " 

Nobody moves - Nyota too startled, Spock obviously unsure as to how he should react, the poor servant bug-eyed - so Leonard roars his orders with all the ferocity he can muster up. Which is a lot. He wasn’t named after a ferocious Earth beast for nothing, it seems. "Get out _now!_ "

Nyota very delicately puts the datapad on the bedside table and backs away. "I’m getting the doctor, alright? I don’t think you’re well."

Leonard lets out a growl of frustration and buries himself once more underneath the bedclothes. When he resurfaces, not a little miserable and embarrassed, Dr. Boyce is bending over him, Nyota’s concerned face hovering over his left shoulder. Spock is nowhere to be seen, and neither is the servant.

He lies limply on his pillows as Boyce checks his pulse and scans him and prods at the glands in his neck. "He’s just exhausted from the schedule and the constant time shifts," he pronounces in his kindly, reassuring voice. He’s been Leonard’s doctor for fifteen years now. And with a pair of well-meaning hypochondriacs for parents, Leonard sometimes feels like he knows Boyce’s crinkly blue eyes even better than his own father’s. "That combined with his aviophobia has understandably worn him out."

"It isn’t aviophobia," Leonard insists, scowling at the window, as Boyce prepares some medication and doses him in the upper arm. It’s probably a sedative. He doesn’t bother to complain or resist. What use would it be? "It’s a...a physical reaction."

"Call it whatever you like, your highness, but the plain fact is you’ve been running yourself ragged these past few months. The sooner this tour is over, the better." He packs the medical implements away in his case, closes it with a decisive snap, and stands, giving Leonard a little bow. "That should allow you to get a good night’s rest. Is there any way we could get him the morning off, push his appearances back a few hours?" he adds, turning to Nyota.

She bites her lip, glances fleetingly down at Leonard like she’s afraid to meet his eyes, and shakes her head in regret. "Not if he’s at all able to do it. It’s too important. And everything’s planned down to the minute."

"Well," sighs Boyce. "That’s a damn shame. Sleep well, Prince Leonard."

Leonard doesn’t answer, just stares dully at the wall opposite the foot of his bed as the doctor pads away, closing the door behind him. He hears Nyota rummaging around the room, doing whatever it is she’s doing to avoid talking; eventually, though, she comes over and sits next to him, tentatively stroking the hair off his forehead. Usually he doesn’t mind it - the gentleness under her businesslike exterior, the way she tries to mother him though she’s almost five years younger than he is - but right now, he feels like a spoiled, wayward infant who doesn’t deserve it.

"I’m sorry, Nyota."

"I know it’s hard," she says softly. "But we’ll be home soon. Two more stops. It’s almost over."

"That’s the thing, though," Leonard murmurs. "It’s never over."

Nyota doesn’t have a response to that. She just pulls the coverlet up, stands, wishes him good night and slips away, ordering the lights off and the windows opaque in a low voice, leaving Leonard alone with his thoughts. Which, in the state of mind he’s in, don’t amount to much at all.

 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been alone; just that outside the frosted windows, the light has darkened from the rosy purple of late sunset to the true blue of night. The sedative doesn’t seem to be doing what it had been meant to do. Instead of falling asleep as he should have, he lies on his back, hyperfocused on the faint shadows of tree branches playing across the ceiling, barely blinking as he stares up at the shifting patterns. From down the mountain, right through the closed windows, he can hear the drumbeats and twangs of stringed instruments, the laughter, even what he imagines is the constant soothing undulation of the waves lapping at the beach.

The water. He wants to feel it. In a daze, he pushes the covers back and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, wiggling his toes in the rough carpet as if it’s sand. The realization of what he is doing doesn’t hit him until he’s already across the room and is opening the wardrobe door, but by then his mind is made up and there’s no turning back. He leaves the pyjamas in a heap on the floor, feeling like a snake shedding an old and unneeded skin, and dresses in the simplest clothes he’s brought - dark brown trousers and a pale blue buttoned shirt, utilitarian black socks and plain black lace-up shoes. After a moment of consideration, he dons a watch, but no tie or scarf or belt. He tucks his shirt in out of habit, but leaves the top three buttons open, reveling in the unusual feeling of cool air against his collarbones.

No alarms go off when he opens the glass double doors onto the narrow balcony. The landscape of Risa lies spread out below him, glowing tantalizingly under the moons, dappled with golden light from windows and lanterns and fire pits. Peering over the metal railing to study the decorative ledges and the spaces between the bricks, and feeling fortunate that he’d been allowed to take rock climbing lessons several years earlier, Leonard clambers over the rail and edges out onto the wall, fingers gripping the bricks hard, anchoring himself with the toes of his shoes. 

He pauses for a moment, breathing heavily and his heart pounding in his ears at his own audacity, clinging three storeys up in the half-light with nothing but air between him and a hard landing. His fingertips burn. Nobody comes. Nobody shouts at him to get back inside, or hollers up to him and flashes a holocam in his face.

Leonard, cheek pressed to the still-warm stone, smiles to himself.

Getting down is just a matter of not letting go; his arms are strong and it doesn’t take him long once he gets into a climbing rhythm. His fingers are a little clumsy from the sedative and he nearly slips several times, but soon enough, he’s standing amidst flower bushes and there’s solid mulch under his feet. The fence and freedom lie a bare hundred meters ahead, but if they’d left his balcony with so little protection, the chances of the fence not being monitored or even surrounded by a security forcefield are probably dire at best.

Hm. How to get out.

A convenient late-night delivery transport idling at the back of the building with a door open provides just the solution he’s looking for, even if stowing away isn’t exactly the most legal thing to do. Settling into the cold, musty wine-smelling darkness among the crates of empty bottles and bags of vegetables, Leonard can’t find it in himself to care. Getting out was the hard part, and he’s just accomplished it.

He holds the back door open a tiny crack and lies as low as he can until he hears the driver get in and start the truck up, the motor whirring to life under him. The gentle movement and constant hum start to lull him into a dazed, cottony half-sleep, eyelids drooping, and it’s a little longer than he’d intended before he jolts back to consciousness and realizes he needs to get out. The pale glowing face of his watch tells him it’s been twenty minutes. They’re undoubtedly out of the vicinity of the embassy by now. Maybe even out of the city itself.

He carefully pushes one of the crates to the side to clear a path for himself. _You can do this,_ he thinks, bracing himself on a bag of what feels like potatoes. _Soon. Just jump._

The next time the truck comes to a stop, Leonard pushes the door open, hurls himself out onto the empty road and scrambles blindly off to the side, down a shallow gravel embankment and into a dark stand of trees. He crouches in the undergrowth, pulse hammering, as the truck continues on with its door hanging open, the driver apparently not having noticed. Leonard sends them a mental apology and hopes none of the cargo falls out.

He stays there a while, eyes squeezed shut, palms pressed to the nearest tree trunk to steady himself. His stomach is twisting itself up into nervous knots, threatening to bring the milk and crackers he’d forced down right back up again. He’s done it. He’s done it, and now he can’t move. What was the point in escaping if he can’t make himself move?

The thought of his guards discovering his absence, coming out to search for him, and finding him cowering pathetic and undignified under a tree is what gets Leonard up and walking. That, and the attraction of what looks like a small resort area, lights beckoning, a little way up the road. He can hear happy voices, but more importantly, he can _smell_ the ocean beyond, cool and fresh and salty. That’s what he wants. He doesn’t have an ocean at home, in his landlocked palace amidst the rolling hills.

"Coming," he mumbles to himself as he pushes his way through the trees, toward the lights.

Despite the high probability that he is, besides Spock, the most fully-clothed being on the planet at the moment, Leonard feels strangely naked as he stumbles down the sloping path into the resort, legs wobbly. Now he’s sure this isn’t the place his room had looked out on, with the boats and the huts on the beach - the transport had traveled a little too far for that and he’s found himself in a different area entirely, on a different bay. Surely he’s somewhere outside Risa City, where the people might not be expecting him and he might be able to go unnoticed.

Maybe he’ll try talking to somebody.

He could get a drink. People do that.

When he enters a likely-looking establishment, an open-air tavern with no walls at all, a thatched roof and a broad patio all around, Leonard can’t escape the nervous, crawling sensation that all heads might automatically turn and fix him with a accusing stare at any second. He keeps his shoulders hunched and head low, ruffles up his hair into what feels like an unrecognizable mess, pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, tries to act casual and saunters unsteadily up to the bar, taking a seat on one of the high backless wooden stools. It’s only a momentary success, though. With his feet off the ground, his sense of balance diminishes unexpectedly and drastically. He clings to the underside of the counter and closes his eyes for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to pass and hoping he doesn’t throw up.

"What’ll you have, handsome?"

A woman is talking to him. Leonard forces his eyes open - she’s standing directly opposite him, behind the wide wooden bar, with a smile on her purple-lipsticked mouth and one hand propped on her waist. He’s never met anyone with hair that shade of shocking orange before, and he smiles politely, unsure of how to answer. She’s asking him what he wants to drink. Usually, he only has set menus to deal with, with one or two wine options. Now, he could have _anything_ , and he has no idea what to choose. 

"I - I haven’t decided. What would you recommend?"

She cocks her head, seems to think a moment, then pulls a clean glass from the hanging rack above her and a selection of bottles from the table behind her, and sets to work mixing up something complicated-looking. Leonard peers down over the bar, fascinated and a little hypnotized, in his woozy state, by the movement of her hands. "I think you’ll like this one." The tumbler is half-full of something green, and when she fills it up with a clear liquid from a tall bottle, the drink swirls a moment, then abruptly turns a striking cerulean blue. She tops it off with a slice of some sort of fruit on the rim and pushes the completed drink across the bar towards him, liquid still spiralling in a lazy vortex. "It’s a particular specialty of mine."

Leonard nods his thanks and lifts the glass to his mouth. It doesn’t smell of anything. "What is it?" he thinks to ask.

"A Risan Hurricane."

"There are no hurricanes on Risa - the weather grids prohibit it," he observes, remembering what the environmental speaker had told him as he takes a tentative sip. The woman laughs, not politely with a hand up to her face but loud and unfettered, her teeth showing. Leonard swallows, bemused.

"Only the ones in a glass. How d’you like it?"

It’s cool and sweet and deliciously tangy and tingles warm and effervescent all the way down, unlike anything he’s ever been served at a state dinner. The bartender, seeing his reaction, grins. "It’s good, right?"

"Very good." Leonard sips again, and when he’s nearing the bottom of the glass and beginning to consider a second round, he realizes - he has no money. No credits, or precious metals, or whatever it is they use to pay or barter here. "Oh."

"Oh what?"

"I -" His dizziness is intensifying, and not from the vertigo. He puts a palm to his forehead to quell it, and notices the flash of the silver band before his eyes. Wait. Maybe he _does_ have something. It’s just a watch, but surely it’s worth more than what a drink must cost, even an expensive one. "Payment. Is this fine? I don’t have any credits, money..." He struggles with the clasp for long moments before finally getting it loose, then gives the watch to the woman, pressing it into her hands. "Please, take it. Take it. It’s...what is it? It’s trillium, I think."

Her eyes and mouth are like Os as she examines it, turns it over to see the back, and Leonard’s brow crinkles. "You’re serious?" she says disbelievingly. "Is this real?"

"Is it not good enough?" he asks in tipsy dismay. "I can go get some credits, if you don’t mind waiting."

"Sweetheart," she says quickly, "it’s good for another one of those." She grabs another glass off the rack and starts whipping him up a second blue drink. "And as many as you want until you pass out or I do."

What can he do but take her up on that offer? He drinks another Hurricane, because he won’t have the chance to again, of that he’s sure. He eats half the bowl of unidentifiable crispy things she brings him to ‘soak it up’, as she says, then sets to work on his third. He only gets one sip into that one, though, before he has to put it down and close his eyes. The light has become too bright, the sound of clinking glasses and the laughter of the other patrons too loud and reverberating against his eardrums. He’s had alcohol, and this isn’t normal. He doesn’t think, at least.

"I have to go," he slurs, confused, the words running together. The bartender is finishing up someone else’s complicated drink; both of them stare at him, but he pays them no mind. He slips off his stool, waves vaguely - don’t flap your hand, rotate your wrist, Leonard, it’s more genteel - and turns toward the entrance. The colors around him seem to be blurring into a bright orangey mass, threatening to swallow him up. He needs to get outside, to where it’s cool and dark. "Thank you. Hafta go."

"Wait, maybe you’d better sit - you don’t look so -"

Maybe she would have followed him, but another group of patrons arrives just then, and by the time she’s gotten their drinks, he’s gone. Across the road and away from the harsh yellow lights, down a grassy hill and through a fragrant grove of widely-spaced palms. He has the vague idea that he’ll get to the gleaming silver line that is the surf, splash some water on his face. He’ll feel better. Everything will stop spinning, he’ll regain control of his wits and get back to where he belongs. He’ll apologize to Spock for being so illogical. He’ll give Nyota a kiss and tell her he’s sorry for acting so angry and ungrateful, when all she ever does is help him and listen to his troubles. 

He’ll be a better person from now on. All he needs is a little ocean air to clear his head and calm him down.

He doesn’t make it quite that far, though.

***

_How, exactly, do you acquire the information you want without doing anything illegal, landing yourself in hot water or ruining your outlet’s reputation? It’s about persistence and creativity, Kirk._

Jim’s favorite place to go and clear his head at night is the tiny park at the head of Azar Bay. It isn’t isolated, so he can easily get a drink or something to eat or find some company at the resort up the way if he wants it, but it isn’t the buzzing hive of tourist activity Suraya is, and there’s nothing particularly flashy or exciting about the area that might attract revelers. Just neatly kept grass, palm trees planted at irregular intervals, the low din of the water and the distant sound of activity from up the hill and across the street, and wooden benches scattered here and there for the convenience of the weary and anxious journalist’s butt.

He is walking past one of these benches when a groan comes out of the dimness, followed by a distinct thump, and another groan, softer this time. Jim’s brain goes to all kinds of interesting and frightening places before registering that it’s a man who has, apparently in a drunken stupor, rolled off his bench.

And is now noisily throwing up. Jim winces. He’s been there, and not too long ago, either. On this planet, you can’t escape it sometimes.

Jim’s ready to just pass by. It isn’t really the thing to interrupt drunk people when they’re puking. But when the man makes a noise that sounds less like migraine-induced regret and more like the whine of an injured animal, his hero instincts kick into gear, and he finds himself crouching carefully in front of a miserable heap of drunken humanity, putting a hand lightly on his solid shoulder.

"Hey, man. You okay?"

"Ughhhh," moans the guy, cheek pressed into the dirt. "No."

"Anything I can help you with?"

"Help - sit up. Please."

"Okay," says Jim, reaching around the guy’s waist and helping him to a sitting position. His legs splay like a broken doll’s, his shirt half-unbuttoned and his thick dark hair a ridiculous rat’s nest. He has a clean-shaven, attractive face, but he sure looks like he’s seen better days than today. "Wanna sit on the bench? You’re gonna have to get up."

Jim does most of the work, but eventually the guy is back up on his bench, blinking like he isn’t sure how he’s gotten there. "Thanks," he slurs. "Good help."

"I sure as fuck am," Jim agrees wearily, collapsing onto the bench beside him, but not before checking it for any errant vomit or other bodily fluids.

"Hmm." The man smiles, wobbily but sweetly, eyes half-shut. He sways for a moment, then sort of collapses sideways and rests his head on Jim’s shoulder. He doesn’t seem so good - a quick press of Jim’s palm ascertains that his skin is hot and clammy, forehead dotted with beads of sweat. He doesn’t smell that drunk, though. And this isn’t the usual result of the kind of stuff they serve around here, anyway, unless he just reacts incredibly strongly to it. "Y’r nice."

"Okay. Buddy, I think you need to go home...or maybe to a clinic."

"Take m’home."

"Yeah, yeah," says Jim encouragingly, trying to prop him up. "Time to go home. I’ll get you to a cab or a bus. There’s a transport stop right up the hill."

"No." The guy pulls away, shaking his head. "No creds. Don’ave -" He breaks off mid-sentence, groaning and holding his stomach, and Jim pulls away, alarmed. 

"You okay?" In response, the guy just throws up again. Some of the peripheral splatter hits Jim’s sneakers. It’s fucking _blue._ "Ugh. Okay. You need to move, or go...somewhere, or I’m going."

" _Home,_ " the guy groans, head hanging between his knees, the ends of his hair nearly falling into the puddle of puke. Jim pulls him forcibly back up by the collar of his shirt, despite his inclination to just leave the guy to stew in his own gastric acid, because these are his _favorite_ shoes. Were. He is seriously regretting being a Good Samaritan tonight.

"Tell me where you live, and I’ll _get_ you there, okay?"

"Nnngh...palace."

Jim massages his forehead in frustration. "Awesome. The palace. Of course you do." The centuries-old palace ruins at the head of the Suraya cliffs, remnants of the earliest Risan civilization, are famous. They’re one of the most popular local attractions to photograph or, for those with enough fortitude and stomach to climb up there without getting dizzy, to explore in person. Jim has been up there a few times, and he’s pretty sure the only things that live there anymore are the seabirds that nest among the fallen rocks.

He slumps against the back of the bench and considers his options as the guy curls up and groans next to him. He isn’t sure how this has become his problem, but...the guy threw up on him, so he feels like he can’t just leave him. (Though anyone else might have come to the exact _opposite_ conclusion, Jim Kirk...isn’t anyone else.) And he doesn’t seem like the average Risa partier who’s just had a few too many and could be safely left to sleep it off - who is he with? Where are his friends? Why is he dressed like an office supervisor?

Jim could drag him up the hill and drop him off at a clinic. But if his friends can’t find him...and they might not let Jim just dump him and run; _somebody’s_ got to assume some sort of responsibility for him...

Geez. Jim’s just too damn kind and guilty for his own good. Eventually he ends up lugging the man up to the transport stop (no mean feat; standing up, they’re about the same height, and the guy probably has fifteen pounds on Jim) and hefting him on board the next shuttle bus that happens by. The twenty-minute ride to the capital is an awkward one, with the guy’s sweaty face pressed to his neck and his arms clutched around his middle as he emits a soft moan every time they go around a corner, despite the smoothness of the ride. His complexion looks even more sickly in the artificial lighting than he had in the moonlight.

"Need to go home," he keeps mumbling against the collar of Jim’s shirt. 

Jim looks up, sees a group of tipsy women giggling at them from further up the bus, and looks down again, reddening. "We’re going to _my_ home. You’d better not be a murderer."

"No," the guy grunts.

"Good."

The room Jim rents is on the third floor of one of the more crumbling apartment buildings in the unfashionable section of the city - too far from any of the fun places and too close to the boring ones, like government buildings and laundromats, to be of any interest to tourists, and too old to be sufficiently modern but not old enough to be advertised as ‘heritage’ and command a high price. It’s on a quiet side street that doesn’t even have sidewalks, set a little way back from the curb and half-hidden by tall, spindly citrus trees. Jim drags the guy off the transport and down the narrow brick footpath that leads to the entrance, struggling to hold him up as he fumbles in his pocket for the old-fashioned key to the gated Risa-style courtyard. That’s the one interesting thing about the place, though it occasionally makes him feel like he lives in a panopticon. "Okay. C’mon. Going in now."

Fortunately, it’s late enough that all the shabby windows looking down on the courtyard are dark, and their further awkward struggles to get up the three flights of stairs to Jim’s door go unremarked-upon. It’s a relief once they’re both inside and the door is closed, until Jim flicks the light on - no voice control here - and the guy immediately starts peeling his clothes off. The apartment seems a lot smaller with two people standing in it. Even more so when one of them is rapidly becoming less clothed than he probably should be.

Jim gapes. "Wait, waitwaitwait, what’re you doing?"

"Hot," the guy mumbles, giving up on the tiny buttons on his shirt and pulling it over his head instead, dropping it on the floor and setting to work on his pants. "Sleepin’ naked. No damn p’jamas."

"Uh, no," says Jim, still frozen at the door, staring at the alarmingly fit body parts being revealed one by one in his ailing new pal’s apparent quest for complete nudity. Under any other circumstances...he wouldn’t feel guilty for ogling. Nobody would _blame_ him for ogling. Whatever his name is and however drunk or sick he might be, he is pretty fucking attractive, and that’s a fact. "How about you keep the shorts on, okay? Underwear is good, it’s - it’s very good. To wear. On your body."

Collapsing backward onto Jim’s little single bed, his pants around his ankles, the guy stares blearily up at the ceiling and nods once. "Alright. Sleepin’." His eyes close.

"No!" squawks Jim. " _Not_ on my bed. On the couch. I have to _work_ tomorrow, you know. You looked all pathetic so I brought you here, but I don’t even know your name, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, I’m not giving up my...and you’re asleep." His chest is rising and falling in the peaceful, regular rhythm of unconsciousness. Jim’s never seen anybody just go like that, like turning off a light. "Of course you are." 

Jim sighs deeply. Then he tugs the guy’s pants the remainder of the way off, because all he needs now is to be awoken during the night by a stranger who’s tripped over his own clothes in the dark and cracked his head open on the bureau. Jim needs his security deposit back.

Resigned to a night of back-spraining discomfort, he goes and washes his face and brushes his teeth, takes a piss, strips down to his own shorts and commandeers one of the pillows and the blanket to make up a bed for himself on the ratty chaise lounge he usually uses for piles of laundry in doubtful states of cleanliness. Having done that, he casts another sour look back at the sleeping vagrant, draped sideways over the bed with his feet on the floor. 

Screw that. He isn’t going to maneuver him into a more dignified sleeping position. It doesn’t look like he even cares, anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

Jim curls up on the narrow chaise as best as he can, punches his pillow into the right shape, and drifts off surprisingly easily to the rhythm of soft, strange breaths. He doesn’t even realize he hasn’t set his alarm.

 

He wakes four hours late. 

One hour too late for that press conference.

His ass is toast.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck," he snarls as he dashes around the room, downing the last cold dregs of yesterday afternoon’s coffee straight from the pot, gathering up clothes and his bag and padd and trying to finger-comb his hair into some semblance of neatness and put on his socks at the same time. "Not good, not good -"

The guy from last night is still sleeping peacefully, now lying on his stomach the right way around on the mattress with his face mashed into the pillow. There are smudges of dirt on the white pillowcase. Jim hesitates, wary about leaving a stranger alone in his place with his stuff - however little of it there might be - but decides that keeping his job is the more pressing issue at hand, and leaves with a last muttered curse. He does make sure to bang the door extra-hard behind him.

Of course his landlord would be standing right outside his own door at the most inopportune time possible, watering his potted plants. "Hey, Kirk," he calls in his thick native Risan accent as Jim takes the steps three at a time and sprints across the courtyard, buttoning his shirt cuffs as he runs. "How about that rent, hey?"

"I’ll get it," Jim hollers, raising a hand but not turning around. "Just gimme a few days!"

"A few days, a few days, that’s all I ever get from you!"

"Jesus _Christ,_ " he mutters, banging the gate shut without locking it. He doesn’t bother waiting for a bus but just runs the six blocks to the office, bursting into the newsroom like a whirlwind and startling his passing coworker Christine so badly she almost drops her cup of spice tea. Pity; it could only have made the dingy green tiles look better. Pike keeps badgering his bosses for renovation creds, but they tend to dismiss the Risa bureau as the purgatory of journalism, a mere stepping stone for reporters who are heading further out into the quadrant. Pike gets a pass because he’s got history and a distinguished reputation, plus he’s in charge of Terra Newsweb coordination for the whole Risa System. But the rest of them are just a bunch of backwater incompetents who drink all day in lieu of being able to find any actual news on the planet to report on.

Which is partially true, but beside the point.

"Kirk! God! Where’s the fire?"

"Sorry," he pants, red-faced, adjusting the collar of his shirt and making sure his press badge is centered on the edge of his pocket. "Gotta see Pike."

"Yeah, he was asking about you earlier," Sulu chimes in from his desk, tapping a spot on the padd he’s holding. He looks good and hungover, with his sandaled feet up on tabletop. "Did you go to that prince thing this morning?" 

"How was it?" Christine says, eagerly. "I’ve heard he’s very intelligent."

He wouldn’t know. "Uh, tell you guys all about it later," Jim hedges, slapping Sulu on the back as he passes by. He takes a deep breath, straightens up, and knocks on Pike’s door.

"It’s open," comes his answering voice.

Jim goes in to find Pike looking annoyingly well-rested and put-together. "Well," he says, turning the padd he’d been reading from facedown on the desk, removing his black-rimmed glasses and setting those carefully down, too, and lacing his fingers together under his chin. "How did it go?"

Jim flashes the brightest and most charming smile he can muster up. His glance immediately lands, as it always does when he comes in here, on one of the old holos on the display board behind the desk. The Kirk team, George and a very young Pike and their photographer Winona, with their frequent offworld collaborators, Colt and Primus. They’re all in formal wear, grinning like mad: they’d just won an award for excellence in conflict journalism. It doesn’t make Jim feel any better about what he’s doing right now. "It went great. It was really good."

"Oh?" Pike’s greying eyebrows arch slightly in what Jim hopes is interest and approval. His stomach is churning. He can’t look at the picture anymore, so he lets his gaze fall to the padd on the desktop. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s trying to accomplish here, lying right to his boss’s face when there’s really no way he can keep up the charade, but...it might buy him some time to pull off a miracle. He has to get in to see that prince, events schedules be damned. "Did you interview him?"

"I did, yes. Great interview. Not as private as I’d hoped, but -"

"What did he say about the proposed multi-corporation mining plans for his planet’s southern continent? Did you ask him about that?"

Jim swallows, throat suddenly dry and sticking shut. "He, uh, said that...as long as it’s all done in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly way." That sounds like something a diplomatic royal guy would say. Nice and vague and unthreatening. "I’ll have to go over my notes to get the exact wording he used."

"But he knows the process of extracting pergium isn’t exactly neat and tidy."

"He...hopes they can find some way to make it work." He is so out of his depth here. His palms are starting to sweat. Pike’s eyes narrow, which is a bad sign.

"Mmhmm. I take it by the way you’re bullshitting me you haven’t had time to read this morning’s headlines." Pike slides the padd across the table to him, and Jim turns it and reads with a sinking feeling. _VISITING ROYAL STRICKEN WITH UNKNOWN ILLNESS._

"All - all appearances cancelled for today," Jim reads, stuttering a little. "Would you look at that."

"Apparently he was showing symptoms yesterday," says Pike mildly, "and worsened drastically during the night. He hasn’t been seen by _anyone_ save his own staff since yesterday evening. Your skills are even more impressive than I thought, Kirk, if you were able to get an exclusive with him."

Jim hands the padd back, shamefaced. His professional life is flashing before his eyes, and it isn’t pretty. He’s done for. "I’m sorry, okay. There was kind of an emergency late last night that I had to see to, and I was so tired and mixed-up I forgot to set my alarm, then I was terrified you were gonna fire me so I - I was trying to buy some time so I could go get the interview this afternoon." Which obviously has a snowball’s chance in hell of happening now.

"Who says I’m _not_ gonna fire you?"

Jim doesn’t answer.

"I’m disappointed in you, Jim. I really thought you were going to start taking this job seriously."

"I just didn’t want to disappoint _you._ "

Pike lets out a long breath and rubs the back of his neck, looking weary. "I’ve got things to do. Come back later and we’ll talk."

"Okay," Jim says, meekly and miserably. When he emerges into the newsroom, shoulders slumped, everyone stares at him. He scowls.

"What?"

"You alright?" Sulu ventures. "You look like you ran over your own puppy."

Jim looks at him for a moment, then lets out a humorless laugh. "I did, man. I think I just did."

 

He feels like he could close the shades and sleep for days, but his bed is still occupied when he gets back. With a muttered curse, Jim turns his back on his guest, sits down at his desk instead and pulls up the messages and news alerts he hadn’t checked before leaving.

There it is again. If only he’d seen it - _VISITING ROYAL STRICKEN WITH UNKNOWN ILLNESS._ Underneath it is a blurb about how Prince Leonard’s staff had suddenly cancelled all scheduled events for that day, claiming he was unwell and that the best doctors were tending to him at the embassy, and that they were sure it would pass in a day or two but for the moment, the prince was in no condition to see anyone or go anywhere. Accompanying this story is a good-sized head shot of the prince himself, posed, probably in a studio, in formal dress.

Jim’s poor stomach, already in a state of anxiety from his meeting with Pike, practically swoops up and out of his mouth at the sight.

"Oh my God." The prince is very handsome and proper and put-together; his posture rigidly straight, his brown hair neat and side-parted with a delicate gold diadem perched on top. His expression is serious. Those eyes, though - that mouth, that nose, that whole face, that _everything_ \- it’s the guy. Hot, drunk, incoherent, puking, boxers-wearing bed-usurping guy. It’s absolutely him, unless they’re twins, or clones, or strangers who look identical, or something else equally unlikely.

Jim pushes his chair back with a screech and flies across the room, padd in hand. He drops to his knees beside the bed, gingerly lifting the messy bangs off the man’s face with one finger and holding up the picture for comparison. The man’s eyelashes flutter slightly, but he doesn’t stir.

"Hello," Jim murmurs in astonishment.

Fuck. Prince Leonard isn’t sick. It’s all media bull. He’s a runaway, and he’s _right here_ , almost naked in Jim Kirk’s bed. Jim holds his breath, sure that with that realization the prince will just vanish into a puff of smoke - but all he does is make a deep, sleepy, contented noise in his throat and burrow his face further into the pillow.

Panic starts to set in. Jim leaps to his feet again, realizing that if anyone knows, if anyone’s seen, the authorities will come and beat his door down. There’s no way they won’t find him. Risa is big and populous and crazy, but this guy is a _royal._ What’s the punishment for harboring a royal fugitive? Would he be charged with kidnapping? Extradited?

He presses the heels of his hands to his suddenly throbbing forehead in dismay. "Shit. Wake up." He kicks hard at the bedpost. "Sir? Your highness? Wake up, c’mon, you need to _go_."

The guy - the _prince_ \- murmurs something unintelligible and rolls onto his back, one long arm flopping bonelessly over the edge of the bed. Jim holds his breath and hopes he’ll wake on his own. He doesn’t.

It isn’t until Jim’s crept backwards and dropped into his desk chair again that it occurs to him. _Hits_ him, like a lightning bolt to the head, leaving him wide-eyed with excitement.

He, Jim Kirk, has an exclusive story in his bedroom that nobody else on the planet has or probably will ever have. 

Yes, he has used that as a pick-up line a time or two, right after ‘hi, Jim Kirk, I’m with the press’. But this time, it is _literally true._ Shit. Being nice to some random guy in distress might turn out to be the act that saves his job, if he plays his cards just right. And Sulu always tells him he’s a hell of a card sharp.

He picks up his comm, scrolls to Pike’s code, and rapidly thumbs in a text message. _You’ll get a story tomorrow. I am not lying this time. I promise._

Then he sends another message to his favorite photographer. He himself can turn a phrase, but when it comes to an eye for detail and a beautiful image, Montgomery Scott is the guy to go to. _Scotty, I need a huge favor for a huge story. I mean fucking gigantic. If at ALL possible, come to Cafe Roma around 1300 today. DON’T TELL ANYONE WHERE YOU’RE GOING OR THAT YOU’RE MEETING ME. You’re the best!_

This accomplished, Jim starts nervously tidying up, tiptoeing around and casting frequent looks at his sleeping guest, stuffing dirty laundry into whatever bags he can find, cleaning the bathroom, lining up empty bottles by the door to take out for recycling.

It wouldn’t do to have a prince wake up to a messy pigsty of a bachelor pad.

***

It’s the bright light falling directly onto the backs of his eyelids that finally drags Leonard to full consciousness. He flings a hand up to cover his face, groans, rolls over and just manages to stop himself from falling right off the mattress. As he clings to the edge, a pair of strong hands nudges him up and onto his back, where he lies sprawled and dizzy and utterly confused. "Wha -"

"Whoa, there. Sorry, the bed’s not really big enough to roll over in. I’ve fallen off more than once, gotta admit."

The hairs on the back of Leonard’s neck prickle at the unfamiliar male voice coming from somewhere right over him. The bed is hard. He can feel that he’s got no clothes on, the sheets rough against his back and legs. There are things he’s supposed to do in this kind of situation, things that have been drilled into him since he was a kid: always cooperate, never antagonize them, someone will come for him, he just has to be patient -

As he cracks one eye open in trepidation, a face comes into view, blurry at first but gradually sharpening until Leonard can see it’s a young, sandy-haired man with a soft mouth and sharp features and the bluest eyes he’s ever seen, bluer even than his father’s or Phil Boyce’s. He’s gorgeous, and he’s smiling. 

Leonard frowns. Doesn’t seem like his idea of a kidnapper or a terrorist.

_Do not trust appearances, highness. Anyone could be an enemy. Always be on your guard._

"Good morning," the man says, and Leonard suddenly realizes he knows him. He sits up and scoots back against the headboard - no, against the wall; this bed has no headboard - gathering the sheet to his chest. The man, straddling a wooden chair backwards at the foot of the bed, looks curiously at him but makes no move to follow.

"Who are you?" Leonard asks, his voice coming out sleep-rough. He clears his throat, wets his dry lips, and the man’s gaze drops briefly to his mouth before resolutely meeting his eyes again. 

"I’m Jim. Jim Kirk."

"And where am I?"

He’s never been here, that he knows. It’s tiny and claustrophobic, with dark, old-looking wooden furniture that takes up most of the space, dingy blue walls, a window on each end and a door in the middle, with another door leading into a tiny partitioned section of the room. The bathroom, maybe, or a closet. The windows are no help; the shades are drawn over one of them, and the other is just a square of unbroken blue sky. 

"In my apartment in Risa City," Jim Kirk says. "D’you remember how you got here?"

Leonard tries to think back to the night before, but it’s sort of a blur. He’d climbed down the wall. Got into a transport. Jumped out. Gone to a bar - a woman with orange hair had given him blue drinks. Hurricanes churning in his stomach. Then it’s all a haze of stumbling out into the night, wanting to get to the ocean, throwing up, and someone’s raspy, soothing voice coming from above his head -

"I was sick," he says suddenly, surprised. "You were there."

"You were drunk," Jim corrects. "Totally drunk. You looked like hell. You fell off a bench."

"I wasn’t drunk." Leonard tries to remember exactly what had happened. "I don’t think. I - I have trouble sleeping, so I took a mild sedative..."

Jim’s smile turns rueful as he rests his chin on his folded arms on the top of the chair back. "And you mixed it with something blue?"

Leonard stared at him. "Yes. How did you -"

"You, uh..." Gesturing to his own feet, Jim made a face, and Leonard realizes he remembers a pair of shoes in his peripheral vision, right next to a puddle of his own vomit. "Threw up. And it was blue. Thought it might be best if I didn’t just leave you there, but I didn’t know where else to take you. You were kind of incoherent at the time."

"I am so sorry," Leonard says in embarrassment and dismay, wriggling around so he’s sitting with his feet over the edge of the mattress, tugging the sheet along with him. He thinks he has underwear on, but it’s still a lot less than most people have ever seen him in. "I’ll fully reimburse you for your shoes. I have to go. I - where are my clothes?"

Jim points to a closed door across from the bed. "They’re hanging in the bathroom."

"Thank you." Leonard places his feet tentatively on the wooden floor and, finding it cold but solid, bunches the whole sheet up around his waist and stands, trailing it after him as he crosses the room. When he gets to the door, he looks back over his shoulder, only to see Jim openly watching him with an expression Leonard can’t quite decipher on his face. Interest, maybe. Amusement? 

Leonard flushes. It feels like it goes all the way down his back, which is not good, as said part of his body is currently on full display. "Is there somethin’ else you could be doing?" he snaps, flustered, the accent he usually suppresses - the press seem to respond better to a flatter style of pronunciation - coming out in full force.

"What?"

"Other than staring at me?"

Jim quickly looks away. "Oh, uh, sorry."

Leonard stalks into the closet-like bathroom and shuts the door behind him. He finds his clothes draped neatly over the curtain rod of the ancient-looking water shower, and dresses quickly, his face burning though there’s nobody in here to see it.

He’d gotten practically naked in front of some stranger, gone to sleep in his bed without even _asking_. 

That’s just not good behavior, much less princely behavior. Not on his world.

When he discovers his watch is not in any of his pockets or anywhere else in the vicinity, he decides not to ask about it. He does have a vague memory of taking it off at some point, but even if Jim has stolen it - not to say he looks like a thief, but you never know - it was just a watch, nothing special. Hell, he probably owes Jim more than that for barging in and disrupting his sleep and his morning.

He uses the facilities, splashes his puffy, smudgy face with ice-cold water and dries it on the questionably clean hand towel, attempts to neaten his hair with his fingers. When he feels an appropriate amount of time has passed, he emerges to find Jim busily tapping away at a datapad at the tiny desk under the blue-sky window.

Leonard clears his throat. Jim looks up from his work, thick eyebrows quirking. "Thank you for your generous hospitality," says Leonard evenly and formally, attempting to gain control of the situation in the only way he’s used to. He still has his manners and his training. "I deeply apologize for the disruption."

"Don’t worry about it," says Jim, rising. "I’ll walk you out." As he opens the door, he adds nonchalantly, "y’know, I don’t think you ever told me your name. I’ve been mentally calling you ‘that guy’ the whole time."

"Oh?" Leonard says with equal unconcern, though inside, the panic is rising. Jim has apparently not recognized him yet. He can’t give him his real name now. Who knows how his luck might change? "It’s...Leo," he says lamely, the only thing that comes to mind. Nobody ever said he was skilled at subterfuge. But ‘Leo’ sounds different enough from ‘Leonard’ that hopefully, Jim won’t put two and two together.

"Leo. Nice to, uh, meet you." They awkwardly shake hands. "Right this way."

It’s a surprise to step out through the door into a large square courtyard lined with windows and stairwells; he’d been expecting a front step and a busy street, but he realizes now that all the traffic sounds are distant and muffled, the sounds of birdsong and the wind in the surrounding trees much more immediate. There are probably a good eight or ten other apartments, but no other people seem to be visible. "I thought you said we were in Risa City?" Leonard says doubtfully.

"We are. Just not the fun part of Risa City."

"Which part is the fun part?" he can’t help asking as they start down the stone steps, and Jim laughs.

"You’re not from around here, are you."

"I’m visiting," says Leonard, in a measured voice. "Which way is out?"

"That gate." Jim follows him across the expanse of cracked tile and, retrieving a real metal key from a pocket of his dark blue pants, unlocks the wrought-iron gate for him and holds it open. Leonard steps through and looks around - trees, patchy grass littered with fallen fruit in various stages of ripeness, a mossy brick path leading to a little cobblestone street with what looks like the backs of other buildings facing them from the opposite side. Not a very exciting place, but a quiet one, and in his situation that’s probably for the best. "To get out to the bus stops, just turn right at the end of the path and walk for about two minutes, then turn left, keep going, and that’ll get you onto the main drag. Be careful of the traffic, the drivers are kind of crazy."

"Thanks." Leonard nods, and Jim nods back, carefully closing the gate. "Goodbye."

He is halfway down the path before he realizes that he still, despite the directions, doesn’t really know where he is, or how to get back, and that he has no way of paying for transportation even if he did know those things. Or food, he mentally adds, as his stomach rumbles right on cue.

Sheepishly, he turns around and heads back up to the gate, where Jim is still waiting, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t have to say a thing; Jim says it for him. "Yeeeah, I figured you’d be back."

"I remembered I don’t have any credits," says Leonard, sheepish. "I don’t suppose..."

"No problem," says Jim amiably, withdrawing one hand from his pocket and passing a credit chip through the gate with two fingers. Leonard takes it, ducking his head in embarrassment. "Don’t worry about it."

"I’ll see to it you’re repaid in full."

"Okay."

"And your shoes."

"Alright." 

They stare at each other a moment through the decorative bars, until Jim clears his throat and Leonard runs a hand through his hair. "Well, I’ll be goin’. Going. Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

***

Jim takes his time changing out of his work clothes. He gives it a good twenty minutes, until he’s sure a few buses have gone by. Then he grabs his comm and a baseball cap, shoves his feet into his non-vomit-stained pair of sneakers, and runs.

***

Jim Kirk had been right about the crazy drivers. Leonard finds a stop for transports easily enough, marked by a large sign with a stylized picture of a bus and a series of alphanumerical codes on it, but while waiting, he’s almost run over by two small scooters, a flitter, and a large van. This doesn’t seem to bother anyone else standing around him. Every time, he jumps backwards and they just stand there at the curb, staring at him like he’s insane. 

He’s glad when a bus finally comes by, gliding along on its antigrav field. "Where does this go?" he asks the uniformed driver as he steps on, flashing the credit chip over the reader and receiving a slip of pink paper in return. He doesn’t know what it does, but folds it up and puts it in his shirt pocket anyway.

"Old Risa City. Next stop’s the central market."

Leonard nods. That sounds promising. "Thanks."

The ride is just long enough for him to familiarize himself with the idea of bus transfers - the paper means that, since he’s paid once, he can show it on any bus for the rest of the day and not have to pay again. He stares enraptured out the window for the rest of the time, watching the pale brick buildings with their bright storefronts and the equally brightly-clothed pedestrians flash by, and when the bus emerges into a sunny, open square teeming with people and little stalls, he decides this must be the place and disembarks along with a dozen others.

Three people jostle him within the first twenty seconds, moving on with quick apologies. Shopping bags brush against his legs, small children run into his knees, laugh, and keep on running, and dogs without leashes sniff at his toes and trot away, tails wagging happily. It’s so crowded. Leonard, having existed in a near-perpetual bubble of reverent personal space his whole life, is almost afraid to move, but he forces himself to walk, otherwise he’ll never see anything but the bus stop. The crowd gets thicker and thicker as he moves deeper into the shopping area, and soon the contact is a constant thing and the nervous tremor in his normally-steady hands is growing. 

If there were ever a time he’d wished fervently for Spock’s company, this is it.

He steels himself, plunges into the sea of people and runs, head down and elbows in like he’s playing some kind of contact sport. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he repeats as he shoves his way through, though with everyone else doing the same thing, nobody appears to care much. Soon he pops out into another clear area and pauses, having found himself at a huge round fountain with greenish water pouring in steady streams out of the nooks and crannies of a tall piece of surreal statuary. He’s pretty sure he’s in the exact middle of the square now, and he sinks onto the narrow surrounding ledge to calm down and get his bearings, tucking his hands under his thighs.

Alright. He’s at the market. He’s in Risa City, he has some money and a transfer for transportation, and he could comm the embassy at any time. But he won’t. He, Prince Leonard - no, _Leo_ ; he’ll be Leo, a person who has every right to enjoy himself - is an independent adult, damn it, and he’s determined to have a real life experience today. One that hopefully does not involve vomiting on hapless strangers.

First, though, decides he needs to do something about his Prince Leonard clothes. Looking around at the other shoppers, he sees shorts, airy patterned shirts, long loose dresses, wide-brimmed hats, all in a variety of colors. In comparison, he appears to be going to a garden party for geriatrics, and his shoes and socks are already getting sweaty and uncomfortable. They were made for appearances, standing up and sitting down and maybe a short stroll, but not for any kind of serious walking. 

He takes a deep breath and heads back into the crowd to search for a clothing vendor, if there is such a thing. Fortunately, there are a lot of them; at the first one he tries, he manages to successfully trade his shoes for a pair of light, sturdy and comfortable slip-on ones, and his buttoned shirt with its fine but stifling material for a soft brown tunic with long, loose sleeves and a vivid blue pattern down the front. The shirt is cool and breezy and utterly unlike anything he’s ever worn before, and the vendor seems equally thrilled with the deal and throws in a pair of dark sunglasses for free.

Being properly attired, sunglasses perched jauntily on the top of his head, and triumphant with the success of his very first barter, puts Leonard much more at ease in the crowd. He decides he’s hungry - today, nobody will tell him when he is and is not supposed to be hungry, and there will be no set mealtimes - so he purchases a wooden skewer of grilled fruit at a food vendor and devours it while standing, the warm juice dripping down his chin. Then he buys another of some kind of grilled meat, taking his time to savor the taste of the Risan spices. He knows, as he delicately slides the chunks of meat free with his teeth, that Nyota and Boyce would be having an absolute fit if they could see him right now. _That isn’t sanitary! How do you know where that stuff came from, or what animal it is? How do you know you aren’t allergic to it?_

It‘s delicious, and he’s still hungry, so he gets another one.

When he’s done, he does some more exploring in the marketplace. There are dozens of little shops arranged all around the perimeter of the square, selling anything anyone could ever need, and a lot of things nobody really needed but would probably buy anyway. Carved wooden statuettes, scarves and bags, toys and balloons, spices and candy, pottery and candles are all laid out for sale in the shade under striped or thatched awnings, the proprietors keeping a close eye on their merchandise. A man with purple skin is telling fortunes at one stall, holding his enthralled customer’s palm up and explaining the lines to them - the fortune-teller’s partner calls out to Leonard, entreating him to come and have his destiny mapped, but Leonard hurries away, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He doesn’t believe in that stuff, anyway. And if he did...he already knows his destiny, anyway, no mapping needed.

The jewelry stall is much more his speed: one cannot grow up in a palace without escaping an appreciation for fine, shiny craftsmanship. A small silver ring with an embedded stone in the exact shade of cerulean blue as his family emblem catches his eye as he strolls by. The seller, a young woman with calloused hands who may not even be out of her teenage years yet, slips it out of its display and tries it on all his fingers, but it only fits the smallest one of his left hand perfectly. "This is the last one of this color I have left," she says, turning the ring so the stone is exactly centered. "It’s a popular one. You could wear it as a pinky ring?"

"It’s nice," says Leonard, wiggling his finger to admire the play of light. It isn’t as ostentatious as he’s used to. His mother would scoff, albeit politely, at this little bauble. Somehow, that thought just makes him want it even more. Maybe he could give it to Nyota as a peace offering when he gets back. It would probably fit her fingers. "How much?"

It doesn’t seem like a lot of credits, so he buys it, refusing the offer of a box and just keeping the ring on his finger. Pleased with his purchase, he heads back to the fountain’s edge and takes a seat, pulling the glasses down over his eyes and gazing up at a passing ship in the clear sky. That’ll be him in a few days, leaving Risa for Vulcan. Just the thought of himself up there in that damned ship again...

Someone walks past, very close - Leonard, lost in thought and busy twisting the new ring around and around on his finger, pays them no mind until the same figure, tall and lean, backs up and stops, right in front of him. "Oh, hey, Leo! Didn’t I just get rid of you?"

Leonard pushes his glasses up again, startled, to see Jim’s backlit form looming over him. He’s donned a black hat with a brim in the front and changed into a short-sleeved white shirt sometime in the past hour and a half. "Are you following me?" Leonard says suspiciously, but Jim just laughs.

"No, don’t worry. I had to go into the office and my boss cut me loose early, so I thought I’d come up here and do some shopping, have something to eat. It kinda sucks not having a fridge or a food synthesizer in the apartment." Jim sits down next to him and stretches his long legs out, looking him up and down with obvious surprise. "You look different."

Leonard shrugs. It’s an alien gesture to him. He’s always been told he shouldn’t do it. "I changed clothes."

"I like it." Jim pauses a second. "It’s pretty hot out today. Come have a drink with me, if you’re not busy? I know a great place nearby. Best prices on the continent, and it isn’t as crowded as the main square."

Leonard hesitates, unsure, but Jim’s face is just too entreating. Well, it couldn’t hurt. Jim _has_ proven himself pretty trustworthy by not harming or kidnapping him at all, and since all the sedative has to be out of his system by now, a drink wouldn’t have any more than the usual effect on his system. "Sure."

"Great. It’s about a twelve-minute walk. You’ll like it, I promise." 

Jim leads him on a winding route through the crowds and around the corners of stores, up this street and down that, and eventually they emerge onto a slightly less busy side avenue lined with trees, the space at every storefront cluttered with small round tables and chairs. People sit sipping their hot drinks or glasses of wine, looking utterly contented with life as they watch the parade of pedestrians passing them by. An outdoor restaurant is an intriguing notion to Leonard, though he would really rather be the spectator than the amusement.

They seat themselves at a free table outside a cafe with a red-white-and-green awning. A male server in a neat white shirt pops up not five seconds later to take their orders. "Uh, an iced tsa with milk for me," says Jim, "and...you, Leo?"

"The same," Leonard says, though he didn’t have the faintest idea what ‘tsa’ is. "Thank you."

The server whisks their orders away, leaving Jim and Leonard to stare uncomfortably at one another over a glass vase with a red flower in it. Jim scratches the back of his neck, smiles. Leonard takes his glasses off his head, hooks them onto the collar of his shirt and runs his fingers through his hair. "Are you from Risa originally?" he ventures, not yet realizing the conversational trap he’s sent himself hurtling right into.

"Uh, no. I’m actually from Earth. Iowa, former USA. I’ve only been on Risa about five months. What about you?"

Leonard stiffens.

"You said you were visiting?" Jim continues, oblivious. The server comes back with their drinks, milky green in tall narrow glasses, and Leonard picks his up and takes a sip, grateful to have something to busy his mouth with. The tsa is good, too, though - cold and creamy and the slightest bit tangy under a layer of sweetness. "Your accent sounds a little like a friend of mine from down south. You’re not from Earth, too?"

Leonard swallows. "I -"

"Oi! Jim Kirk!"

Thanks be. Leonard looks in relief around for the source of the shout. It seems to be coming from a trim, balding man of some age upward of thirty, who is striding towards them looking flustered. Despite the warm day, he is wearing a light blazer and a long, thin grey scarf looped several times around his neck. Jim opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off by the man’s next exclamation.

"I cancelled my appointments at Aerospace, been hanging ‘round for ages, and you don’t even -"

"Hey, Scotty!" Jim says, loudly and delightedly. "What a coincidence. Imagine meeting you out here off the beaten path. Leo, this is my friend from Earth. C’mere, man, I’d like you to meet Leo..." Jim trails off, looking to Leonard to fill in a last name. 

"Davidson," says Leonard promptly. "Leo Davidson."

"Montgomery Scott." Instead of going around to the gate, the man simply steps over the low fence enclosing the tables, and shakes hands with him. He has a round, sun-ruddy face creased with friendly laugh lines, the kind of face one automatically feels comfortable looking at. "Call me Scotty, though - everyone except my mum does."

"Pleased to meet you," answers Leonard, smiling politely, though this Scotty person doesn’t even wait for an invitation before sitting down. He leans an elbow on the tiny table, fixes his greyish eyes very intently on Leonard’s face, and gives him a hard enough inspection that Leonard’s on the point of bolting. "Anybody ever tell you, you - _agh!_ " 

The tsa sloshes in the glasses, and the flower bounces in its vase. Scotty looks sharply at Jim, who stares intently back. Caught in the middle, Leonard plasters on his blankest look and thinks of trade negotiations. He’s been in far more awkward political situations than this before. Obviously they’ve got some tension between them.

"- Your eyes are rather green now?" Scotty finally finishes. "I thought they were brown at first, but now they aren’t. It’s fascinating, really. Artistically. Duochromatically."

Leonard’s never really considered it before. He has his mother’s eyes. That’s all. "Thank you," he says slowly. "I hadn’t noticed."

"So, what, Jim, you forget your wallet again, need ol’ Scotty to bail you out?" says Scotty good-naturedly, apparently having forgotten Jim just kicked him under the table. Leonard looks over at Jim, who doesn’t seem particularly amused. 

"No, just having something to drink, y’know...actually, Scotty, since you’re here, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. Excuse us for a sec, Leo?" Jim promptly stands and drags Scotty off into the cafe proper. Leonard sits, uncomfortable, and peers at them through the door - being out in the sun and looking into shadow, it’s hard to see, but he thinks he can make out Jim’s arms flailing, and Scotty leaning in to say something, wide-eyed and intent. 

They’re working out their issues. Leonard is grateful they hadn’t chosen to do it in front of him, but he still very much hopes they’ll be back soon. With every passing second, the prickling feeling of being watched grows and grows until he’s sure Spock’s guards will come swooping in at any moment to lock the place down and throw him into the back of a van.

This doesn’t happen, though, and Jim and Scotty emerge a minute later, both smiling and apologetic. "Sorry, Leo," says Jim, dropping into his chair and picking up his glass of tsa. "Just some business stuff we had to work out."

"What do you _do_ , exactly?" Leonard is curious despite himself. It’s a perfectly normal thing to ask a new commoner acquaintance, right? 

Commoner. He has to learn to stop using that term, even inside his own head.

"Copyeditor," says Jim smoothly. "It’s not really that exciting. Fixing people’s mistakes, deadlines, all that. Fortunately I’m off for a few days. How’s your drink?"

Leonard takes another gulp. "Delicious."

Scotty spends a few moments adjusting his scarf and straightening the lapels of his jacket, before making an expansive hand gesture to call a server over. "Canna man get some service out here, please?"

Strange people, Terrans.

***

When Scotty adjusts his scarf and touches the round silver pin on his lapel, Jim knows exactly what the gesture means. The man is a master of photography, but not just the taking of the pictures - no, he’s an engineer by trade, and his latest personal project, apart from all the commissions Risa Aerospace has him on, has been building his own tiny cameras from scratch, making them smaller and smaller just to see if he can, to the point where he’s constantly losing his own creations on his massive worktable amongst the screws and tools and bits of scrap metal.

He’d come up with the idea of embedding his cameras in jewelry. It may sound like the work of a seriously sketchy person, but Scotty’s intentions are generally pure. Mercenary, but pure - and whose intentions _aren’t_ mercenary these days, anyway? A guy needs money for booze and rent on Risa. It’s cheap, but it ain’t free. "Function _and_ fashion, Jimmy-my-boy! And think how much easier it’d be for travelers, not to have to lug a cam or a padd out of their bags every time they want to snap a holo. The quality isn’t what I’d like it to be, though...I wonder, if I used..." And then he’d be off on an incomprehensible technological tangent.

Jim has always known Scotty’s pin-cameras could be put to great use one day. With any luck, those little beauties might just help him keep his job.

He tries not to feel guilty about it. Despite his true leanings toward politics and war reporting, he’s been enlisted to do plenty of fluff stories on famous people - finding out where they spend time on-planet, interviewing them when he can - and what is a prince but a government-sanctioned über-celebrity? The guy is probably used to it. Being a public figure is his full-time job. He doesn’t have to work for a living like everyone else, so the least he could do is help contribute to Jim’s.

 

When their server comes around to offer refills, Leo eagerly accepts. It’s his third, but he thanks the man so charmingly that Jim’s sure his highness won’t be accused of freeloading any time soon. "You drink a lot of tsa?" Jim asks noncommittally, as Leo sips.

"Mm - no. I’ve never had it before, actually. We’ve got slightly different drinks on - where I come from."

_Prince Leonard has his first taste of iced tsa with milk -_ Jim mentally captions, as Scotty lifts his own glass and adjusts his lapel again with his other hand. _\- the sweet, caffeine-laden traditional afternoon drink on Risa. It quickly becomes his new favorite; he downs three glasses before we’re through._

"So, uh, you’ve obviously gone shopping since you left," Jim remarks, gesturing to Leo’s shirt. Leo looks down at himself, then up, and grins unexpectedly. _Snap._ Though Scotty’s camera is all but noiseless, Jim can almost hear the tiny gears turning, the mechanisms working, the image of that smile captured and digitally preserved with nothing but a tap of the thumb. "Way more interesting than that other shirt you had."

"Thank you." Leo looks down at his front. "I traded that shirt for this one. Did you know they did that?" He sips again. "Seemed like a good bargain."

_The prince mingled with the vendors of the Old Risa City’s main market square, trading away an expensive raw silk button-down for a cheaper, earthier and certainly more colorful locally-produced tunic. "Did you know they did that?" he says, referring to the time-honored local practice of bartering. It’s clear by his wide-eyed enthusiasm that shopping, much less bartering or trading, is an exciting new experience for him - like the tsa, like the outdoor cafe, like the new woven shoes on feet that obviously haven’t seen much sun lately. "Seemed like a good bargain."_

"Mr. Scotty," Leo says, but Scotty cuts him off with a chuckle and a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Just Scotty is fine, no need for this ‘Mr.’ business."

"My apologies. Scotty," Leo starts again, looking uncomfortable. "What is it you do? Do you work with Jim?"

"I, yes, you could say..." Off Jim’s significant look, Scotty manages to ungracefully but efficiently do a quick conversational one-eighty. "...No. Not as such."

"Not as such," Jim agrees.

"I’m a mechanical engineer, you see," explains Scotty, and Leo raises an eyebrow, obviously intrigued. "Risa Aerospace has me on contract to do some fiddly things for them. Fixing their retractable hangar ceiling. The bloody gears were half-jammed when I got to it. Now, how are you supposed to get your aircraft in and out with the thing like that, I ask you? I’m also a photographer," he adds airily.

Jim closes his eyes in dismay as Leo automatically tenses up, setting his glass down. "Really."

"Wildlife!" His voice has grown a bit manic. He can’t lie. Jim’s an idiot - how could he have forgotten how the guy gets when he’s trying to suppress something? It just doesn’t fucking work. "I hike around the peninsula, documenting things...you know how many species of lizards there are native to Risa?"

"Six hundred and six currently identified," says Leo instantly.

"Really," says Scotty in surprise. "You knew that right off the top of your head."

Leo blinks, then clears his throat, gaze darting around the patio. "Oh, I remembered it from something I read flying in. A brochure."

The conversation dies right there. Scotty appears to have run out of steam, and begs Jim with his eyes to intervene. Jim knows that if he doesn’t come up with something interesting fast, Scotty will either run or spill it all right there out of nervousness, ruining their plans and sending the prince fleeing.

"So," he says congenially and a little desperately, "it’s a nice day for a ride, don’t you think, Scotty?"

"Aye," Scotty agrees quickly. "Very nice."

"Like horseback riding?" says Leo, with interest. Of course. Royal. He’s probably got a stable with a dozen purebreds waiting for him back home.

"Scooters." Off Leo’s blank look, Jim hastens to explain. "The best way to get around Risa is on one of those hoverscooters there." He points across the street, where fifteen or so brightly-colored ones stand lined up and waiting. There are dozens of these self-serve rental spots all around the capital. You pay by the hour or by the day, and return it to whatever drop-off point you happen to be near when you’re done. "They’re cheap to rent, and they’re pretty good on the roads." 

"They’ve got some vertical propulsion to them," Scotty agrees. "Nice little bikes. You feel like you’re connecting with the ground, but really you’re just skimming."

"I’ve never driven one before," Leo admits. Jim can see the eagerness in his eyes and nudges him with his elbow.

"Well?" Leo glances sideways at him. Jim grins. "What are we waiting for? There’s a lot to see, and the faster we go, the more we’ll get to."

"You really don’t have to be my personal tour guide," Leo protests, as Jim flashes his credit chip to take care of their bill, then grabs his arm, and they and Scotty run across the four lanes of traffic. The trucks and flitters and bikes all stop for them, this time. They don’t always.

"Why not? It’s fun," Jim pants as they jog. "All _right_ , they’ve got one of the new models here. Dibs on the silver!"

Scotty laughs. "Damn you, Kirk, I was just about to. This red one doesn’t look bad, though..."

Jim generally prefers something with a little more power - like the motorcycle he’d sold before he’d left Earth - but the silver scooter’s a beauty, he has to admit. With the lack of scratches or dents, it can’t be any more than a week old or so, and the seat’s long and roomy, perfect for two. A romantic scooter ride with a prince through the old capital, Jim thinks, pressing his lips together so he doesn’t laugh. Sounds like a cheesy romance flick.

They pay for a full afternoon at the machine and retrieve three helmets from the attached storage locker. Once Leo has his helmet on and is positioned on the silver scooter, feet firmly balanced, Jim swings his leg over the back and settles in close behind him, hands on his waist. He can feel the muscles tense up under his fingers, and loosens his grip a little. Leo doesn’t remark on it, or demand that Jim get his filthy commoner hands off his royal person, or anything that Jim might have expected from him. In fact, Leo hasn’t really been snooty in the least, this entire time. It’s a pleasant surprise. He has less ego than some small-time soap actors Jim’s met.

"Which way?" is all the prince says, looking around, his fingers opening and closing on the handlebars like he’s getting a feel for them.

Jim thinks. "Let’s go to the waterfront - the bayside road’s pretty flat. We’ll be driving downhill, so don’t go too fast. Ready, Scotty? Down to Suraya."

"Sounds good," says Scotty, flipping the transparent visor down over his eyes, tapping his pin, and giving Jim a wink.

Jim shouldn’t have said anything about speed, because Leo’s a painfully slow driver, slowing down even further for any tiny dip or hill in the terrain. They’re practically tipping over sideways every five seconds from lack of momentum. Jim tries not to push, but after the tenth time they get to a turn, crawl to a halt and stay halted when there’s nobody to hit and they could have taken the corner three times over, Jim feels it’s his duty - to Scotty, at least, who’s stuck behind them and has probably gotten enough shots of Jim’s back to plaster his apartment with - to speak up. 

"These things do go a little faster than walking pace, you know."

"It’s my first time, okay?" Leo says, an edge of irritation to his voice. Interestingly, the natural accent of his world - which Jim has heard described by some of the more derisive news outlets as ‘folksy’ - is once again peeking through the more reserved vocal shell those royals always adopt. He kind of likes it better. It really does sound like a southern American one; you wouldn’t know he’s from halfway across the quadrant. "Just gimme a minute to adjust to the feeling."

"D’you want me to drive for a while?"

"No."

Thankfully, when they start up again, it’s at a more reasonable pace. Which gets faster and faster as they head downhill, out of the city and towards the water, where the roads are smoother but trickier, wrapping themselves around Risa’s famed seaside hills, winding through the trees. They have a couple of near misses with other vehicles going in the opposite direction, but even that doesn’t slow Leo down. By the time they emerge from the rainforest and reach the flat, open road that runs parallel to the beaches all around the capital peninsula, they’re whizzing along at breakneck speed, they’ve lost Scotty somewhere back up the hill behind a truck, and Jim’s definitely rethinking his words of encouragement. Scooters and flitters are honking and swerving out of the way all around them, people yelling after them to slow down as they flash past.

"Slow down a little, Leo!" he shouts, clinging to Leo’s back for dear life. He can hardly hear himself over the wind rushing past his ears, stinging his face and whipping at his shirt. "It’s okay!"

"Uh," he feels more than hears Leo say. Leo’s long back has gone rigid as marble. "Shit."

"Leo!"

"How do I stop?"

Jim gapes and tries to look down over Leo’s shoulder at the controls. " _What?_ You couldn’t do anything _but_ stop before!"

Leo makes a strangled noise. "Jim! I forget how -"

Fuck. This is not a good time for this. A prince, driving a scooter with him on the back, has a panic attack. Jim has flashes of all the possible ways this scenario could go, and none of them are good. He can see the headlines now: _Prince Leonard, 27, dies on Risa beach in scooter-related mishap. The body of his kidnapper, James Kirk, 22, was found clinging white-knuckled to the prince’s back -_ "Twist the handles! Forward! The handles! Geez, just let me -"

They’re slowing a little, but they’ve also drifted off the road completely, somehow managing to miss hitting any of palms lining the shoulder, and are edging right out onto the broad wooden boardwalk. People are diving out of their way with angry shouts, striped lounge chairs flying, but they’re all just flashes of color and instantly forgotten as Jim half-stands, knees wobbling, bracing himself over Leo to reach the handlebars. He gets his hands on top of Leo’s and forces them forward just as the bike overbalances and tips over the edge of the boardwalk, throwing them the four feet down onto the beach. 

Jim lands heavily, knocking the wind out of his lungs. He rolls three times and comes to rest on his stomach with a mouthful of sand and seaweed draped over his helmet. The tide has just gone out. The sand is wet and salty. Delightful. He gasps, coughing and spitting as he gets to his hands and knees, looking around in a dazed panic. The scooter is lying on its side right where they’d gone over, engine off, programmed to stop automatically with no measurable weight on it. Leo is his more pressing concern, though - he spots the prince lying spreadeagled on his back about ten feet away, breathing hard, and scrambles over with a pounding heart. "Shit. Leo!"

"I’m okay," says Leo, hoarse but remarkably calm. His eyes meet Jim’s, and, amazingly, he grins, big and bright and eyes crinkling. Jim gapes. "You okay?"

"Yes, yes, you’re _sure?_ Can you sit up?"

"I don’t think I’ll ever do that again," Leo grunts, as Jim helps him sit up. "Ugh. But it was worth it."

Jim lets out a disbelieving laugh, lightheaded with relief, and impulsively brushes a streak of sand off Leo’s chin. Leo’s nose crinkles beguilingly. "If you say so."

A crowd of sunbathers and swimmers has already gathered around them, but Jim waves them off as he helps Leo to his feet. Leo, Jim notices, hangs his helmeted head low and peers out from behind his hair as they trudge back to rescue their scooter. Scotty, wild-eyed and red-faced, screeches up to the edge of the boardwalk just as they’ve gotten the scooter to the top of the stairs. "What in fuckin’ hell was that?" he demands, accent thick as porridge in his distress. "Are you alright? I got caught behind a transport - saw you go over the edge through the trees and I just about shat myself!"

And hopefully got a few good shots of their mishap while he was at it. "We’re fine, Scotty," Jim assures him, shaking sand off his shirt. Leonard sits heavily down on the back of the scooter and rubs his knees. "I think I’m gonna drive from now on, though."

"Please do," says Leonard with a sandy cough.

 

They decide to stick to leisurely sightseeing after that. There’s a dance demonstration on the beach, which is always a big tourist draw, so they stop and watch for a while. Jim’s seen plenty of them already, but he never can get over how those flower-garlanded ladies move their hips, and neither can Scotty, apparently - he notices the pin-tapping is more often directed at the dancers than the prince, and nudges him subtly when he’s sure Leo is enthralled by the display and thus not paying attention to him. 

"Hey. Dude."

"My lady’s up there," Scotty hisses, and Jim rolls his eyes. Out on the dance mats, Scotty’s on-again-off-again-maybe-girlfriend Gaila is spinning and shimmying, crowned with white flowers as bright as her smile and the whites of her eyes in her emerald-green face. She’s back in the second row, but she’s still sort of hard to miss, being both the only Orion and the only redhead in the group. "What? You can’t expect me to just ignore her. _Look_ at her."

Jim looks. Okay, so Scotty has a point, but still. "I know, but you can take pictures of her dancing any time. This -" He jerks his head toward Leo, who has his hands behind his back and is trying to look like he isn’t swaying a little to the syncopated drum beat - "this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The more shots you get, the more you’ve got a chance to earn, you know?"

"A’right, a’right, I get your point." Scotty angles his upper body toward Leo and snaps a couple of shots, and Jim nods, satisfied.

When he turns back to Leo, though, there’s a problem.

"You look awfully familiar!" a woman in a very large hat is saying to him, as her male companion nods in agreement. "You weren’t in a movie recently..."

"No, no, honey, I could have sworn I saw him on the news."

The dance is still going on, but a few interested faces are starting to turn toward them. Leo looks faintly horrified, and Jim shifts into panic mode - if somebody puts two and two together, the prince is busted, and so is his story. Plastering on a huge smile, he hooks his arm through Leo’s, and hopes he can stop this before it gets any further.

"On the news? Couldn’t have been him, he’s shy as anything. If he so much as sees a vidcam, he runs for cover." Jim pats his hand fondly, and Leo looks down, then up, then turns back to the couple with an equally toothy and false smile. This could only help the situation, because Prince Leonard, as far as Jim can tell, has never been photographed with an expression like that on his face. "Can’t imagine why," Jim continues blithely. "He’s got a face made for movies."

Scotty has positioned himself a little in front of them, hand hovering up around his looped scarf. Leo laughs uncomfortably. "Oh, Jim, flattery will get you nowhere."

"That’s not what you said last ni-iiight. If you’ll excuse us, we’re late for something and I just realized."

They make their escape, Scotty chortling as he follows after. Leo’s ears are beet-red as they head up the boardwalk steps, and Jim realizes he’s still holding his arm and lets him go. "Sorry."

"No, no, I - you’re probably wanting an explanation." Leo, who’d been walking ahead, stops in the middle of the boardwalk, shoulders slumped. Jim just slaps him on the back companionably, making him flinch.

"Why? You know how many times people have thought I was some movie star?" Leo turns slowly around, warily curious, and Jim shrugs to emphasize his point. "I get mistaken for guys I don’t even look like."

"People get carried away just ‘cause it’s Risa - it’s where all the celebrities come for vacations," Scotty clarifies.

"It’s not a big deal," adds Jim, "but it’s weird if you’re not used to it. I just thought maybe I’d save you the hassle and slap them down a little. Teach them not to bug people when they’re just trying to relax and enjoy a show."

Leo breaks into a relieved, far more natural smile. "Oh. Well. I appreciate it." As they walk away, though, he clears his throat. "But were the sexual insinuations really necessary?"

"Absolutely."

"Oh."

 

After a half-hour of exploring the botanical gardens, during which Jim proceeds to make a fool of himself running away from an imposingly large bee, Leo laughs until he’s doubled over, and Scotty, damn the enterprising bastard, gets it all on camera, they decide they’re hungry. Or Jim and Leo do, at least.

"My lady friend should be finished with her performance by now," Scotty says bashfully, ruffling up his hair. "I thought I might go meet her." Jim cocks his head, and Scotty drops his hand and gives the barest of nods as he continues, as if to say _don’t worry. I’ve got some good stuff._ "So you two have a nice afternoon, and perhaps we’ll meet up again later, aye?"

"Aye," echoes Jim with a grin. "Thanks for hanging out with us, Scotty."

Leo and Scotty exchange a handshake. "Yes. And if we don’t meet again - it was a pleasure."

"Likewise."

 

They leave the gardens, driving slowly, and stop at the first cafe they come across to grab something to go, parking and eating as they stroll along the tree-shaded sidewalk. Leo’s attention is caught by everything they pass by - a storefront with the latest women’s fashions ("They’re so _pointy._ How can that be comfortable?"), a display advertising new padd and computer models ("I’m pretty sure my datapad has been in the family for at least three generations"), a flower shop ("My mother loves Altair lilies...").

He never shows any signs of wanting to buy anything, though, until they reach a convenience store. There, Leo makes a beeline for a rack laden with bags of sweets, and Jim’s eyebrows go up. He would’ve expected the prince’s taste in desserts to run more to...gourmet chocolates, or expensive truffles. Something a little fancier than the fruit-flavored twists kids buy with their allowance money. But maybe he’s never been allowed to have them. Maybe they don’t even exist on his planet, and all they have is raisins. "Candy?"

"You don’t like candy?" Leo says, his own eyebrows mirroring Jim’s, like he thinks Jim is patently insane. "We don’t have to buy it."

"Of course I like candy. I’m just...still a little full."

"We’ll save it for a more appropriate time, then," says Leo airily, taking a bag and leaving Jim to swipe his credit chip. The fabric of Leo’s fancy pants (a little sandy and worse for wear, now) lies flat against his hips, no pocket openings, so Jim takes the candy for him. He guesses princes don’t need to carry things - they’ve got people to do that.

"I got it. They might melt, though," he says with a smirk as he tucks the bag into the back pocket of his jeans.

"Is that an observation, or some sort of insinuation?" answers Leo smoothly, and it takes Jim a second to realize that yes, the prince seems to be flirting a little with him. He tries not to get flustered. _Focus on the piece. Prince Leonard likes multicolored fruit candies. Isn’t that interesting?_

"Oh, I dunno. I guess I could say something about my hot ass."

Leo groans and turns away like he’s offended, though Jim sees the corner of his mouth turning up.

The candy ends up being put to good use not long after, when they’re perusing a rack of real paper postcards. A little kid peeks out from behind it, and Leo reaches over and plucks the bag of sweets from Jim’s pocket. "Hey, little one, c’mere. We have all this here and nobody to share it with. If it’s alright?" he adds more formally, addressing the adult in charge of the business, who smiles and nods. Jim would think a parent wouldn’t be so enthused about the idea of a stranger giving handouts to kids - it’s one of the first things they learn, isn’t it? Don’t take candy from random people with vague intentions? - but there’s an honesty in Leo’s face that’s hard to deny.

_Prince Leonard is fond of children. Kind to them, generous with them. They aren’t afraid of him at all, even though he’s a stranger._

"What about me?" Jim asks in mock outrage, as a couple more kids, magically lured by the promise of free sugar, swarm them like sharks to a fresh kill. Leo takes his time filling each grabby little hand with candy, even the sneaky ones who pocket their first and come back for more. Then he looks at Jim and holds up an orange drop.

"I like the green ones," Jim says petulantly. Leo rolls his eyes, fishes a green one out and hands it to him.

"For being patient."

"I paid for it," grumbles Jim around a mouthful of huskmelon flavor, and Leo smiles in what might almost be termed a mischievous way, raising one eyebrow.

"That’s right, you did. Thank you, Mr. Kirk."

"Thank you, Mr. Kirk," shout a couple of the kids as they scatter, and Jim shakes his head and laughs, kind of embarrassed - he isn’t Mr. Kirk; that’s his grandfather - but secretly delighted nonetheless. Leo takes a purple one and hands Jim the bag, and Jim crumples the top up and shoves it back into his jeans for later.

"Where to, good sir?" he says casually, and Leo flinches. It’s barely noticeable, but Jim has trained himself to note these things. _The prince doesn’t like being called ‘sir’._

"I don’t know. Where do you want to go?"

He’s been planning on where to take Leo next for the last hour, and he knows just the spot. He’s just been waiting for Leo to ask. "The palace. Ever been there?"

Leo’s eyes widen, and he blinks several times. "No, I haven’t."

"It’s awesome, you’ll see. Are you afraid of heights?"

"Uh -" Leo seems to struggle for an answer, but the one he eventually comes up with is "no."

Good enough for Jim. They pick up a few little canteens of water, then hop back on the bike and set out toward the east. After they’ve driven twenty minutes, the road they’re traveling on starts narrowing down with each successive turn, the vegetation becoming thicker and more lush, until it’s just a two-lane path through a proper rainforest, the late-afternoon sunlight filtering through the green canopy. "Is this place _on_ Risa?" Leo eventually asks.

"You’re like my nephew. ‘Are we there yet, Uncuh Jim?’ And in answer to both questions -" They emerge with startling suddenness into a large clearing, the ocean waters lapping at a tiny, rocky horseshoe-shaped cove, no good for boats or swimming. Beyond is a space of flattened grass, on which a couple of small cars and a scooter are already parked, a few brightly-dressed people clustered around, looking up with exclamations of delight and amazement. 

What they are looking at are the jagged brown cliffs, rising up from the beach in a wall of rock like someone had picked them up somewhere else and unceremoniously plopped them here. They’re so close to the feet of the cliffs that the air up there looks misty and the ruins at the top can’t be seen - that’s why it isn’t busy here; all the other tourists are on the corresponding hill across the bay, zooming in on the palace with their cams - but Jim plans on remedying that, if Leo is game.

"Wow," Leo murmurs, as Jim circles the scooter around to park.

"It’s even better from the top," Jim promises him, killing the engine.

" _What?_ Jim, we are not climbing up that." Leo gets off and stumbles a few steps away, like he expects Jim to seize him and bodily haul him up the rock face. "We don’t have equipment, we don’t -"

Jim dismounts and pulls his helmet off with a chuckle, hanging it on one of the handlebars. Then he plucks Leo’s helmet off and does the same thing. Leo’s face is a sickly shade of white. "Easy. We’re not going up that way." He lowers his voice so they won’t be heard by the other tourists - he doesn’t want a crowd following them. "I know a walking trail through the forest. It runs up the back side, where it isn’t as steep. I’ve done it like five times. You don’t need equipment or anything to climb, you just need to be in fairly good shape, which..." Jim looks Leo’s tall, muscular form up and down, and Leo colors, embarrassed. "I’m pretty sure you are."

"Fine. As long as you promise I won’t kill myself trying."

"Not on my watch," says Jim solemnly.

 

There isn’t a beaten path, as such, but Jim knows the way. They pick their way through the dense trees, hopping rocky little streams and traversing massive boulders, using low branches to balance themselves a few times as the scree shifts under their shoes. It’s steep in spots, but it isn’t too treacherous, and Leo is keeping up well, stepping precisely where Jim’s feet have gone before him and putting out a hand to steady Jim when he slips crossing a half-rotten log. Jim flashes him a grin as thanks, and Leo shakes his head, clearly rattled.

"How did you ever find your way up here in the first place?" he asks, sounding a little winded.

Jim shrugs, ducking under a spray of tropical flowers. When he looks back, Leo’s hair is dusted with orange petals; he bites back a smile and doesn’t say anything. It’s just then that he realizes he doesn’t have a camera-pin on him, and Scotty isn’t here. He actually hasn’t really been thinking about the story at all for the last hour - he was just excited about showing Leo the ruins. Huh. "I wanted a closer look, and I figured there must be a way up somehow. If the trees could find steady enough land to grow on, I could find something to climb."

"Are we almost to the top?" It’s impossible to judge where they are by looking left or right, the foliage is so dense. But Jim can just make out the jagged topmost edges of white stone above the treetops ahead, like signposts.

"Almost there. Just a few minutes."

Whoever the earliest Risans had been, they must have had a hell of a time hauling all the bleached white beach stone up the hill to build their palace. But the spot they’d picked? No better view on the continent, in Jim’s opinion. Leo is enthralled by the palace, but it takes some urging for him to leave the safe cover of the trees and step out onto the clifftop plateau, where the wind is strong and the sky is brilliant and wide open all around, birds circling not so far overhead. There’s no chance they’ll fall off, unless they do something monumentally stupid - plenty of land between the sheer drops on three sides - but it _is_ disconcerting to be up so high and not in a shuttle, even for adrenaline junkies like Jim.

"I think I’ll admire it from a distance," says Leo determinedly.

"Le-ooo."

"Really, I’m fine."

Jim grabs Leo’s hand, the silver ring he’s wearing digging into his palm as he squeezes reassuringly. Leo looks uncertain, brows drawn together into a sharp furrow. "Come on. I won’t let you fall off," Jim tells him, tugging him out. "It’s perfectly safe."

"I’m more worried about the cliffs crumbling underneath us," Leo mutters, allowing himself to be reluctantly towed. 

"And the chances of that happening are about one in, oh, fifty billion. Look how tall these pillars are," he says, aiming to distract. "Can you imagine how long this would’ve taken to build?" Jim pats one of the fractured white supports, lying half-buried with flowering vines creeping up its sides, entrenching themselves into every crack and splitting the stone wider still. Leo touches one of the weather-beaten carvings, almost impossible to make out now, though the anthropologists in the capital museum say they represented storm gods of some sort.

"It would’ve been beautiful."

Jim walks around the pillar, and Leo follows. "The weather grid helps preserve it. They can make it rain _around_ this whole area, but not _on_ it, so it helps with erosion. And the seismic regulators keep the earthquakes under control, so this section might not come down. But in another thousand years, if the cliff’s still standing, this’ll all be pebbles anyway if they don’t stop the forest from infringing. Hey, c’mere - this would’ve been the main room, this big clear area." Jim hops over a mound of stones and into the clear space and spreads his arms. "When the sun rises, it shines right through the old front entrance into this hall." Part of this wall is still standing, three pillars and a narrow roof section, tall and white and majestic in the sun, casting long stripes of shadow. There are some tufty nests along the lip of the roof, with the birds darting in and out. It’s not unlike what’s left of the Temple of Apollo back on Earth, somewhere Jim has always wanted to visit. Maybe next time he goes back.

When he turns around, Leo is grinning at him, dimpled. Jim smiles back, quizzical. "What?"

"You’re really excited about this, that’s all."

"Yeah, well," says Jim a little bashfully, unused to being called out on it. Probably because he doesn’t usually let his intellectual flag fly in front of many people. "I like history. I like learning about people and why did what they did, and why they _still_ do what they do. The Risans down there and the Risans who built this - same people, a lot of the same traditions, just a few thousand years apart."

Leo steps carefully over the stones and into the palace, gazing up at the roof section. "So why isn’t someone stopping the vines from taking over the ruins?"

Jim comes to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and hooks his thumbs in the edges of his jeans pockets. "They say it’s nature’s way. The stone was born when Risa was and whatever Risa wants to reclaim, it’ll reclaim."

 

After a few more minutes of looking around, Jim leads Leo over to his favorite place to sit - a slab of darker stone that might have been an ancient bench, about ten feet from the western edge of the plateau, overlooking the bay and the city and the ships landing and taking off at the capital’s airfield. They remind him of the birds, in a way. It takes some cajoling, once again, to get Leo to sit down so close to the edge ("I swear I will throw up on you") but once his ass is in contact with the rock, he seems a little more secure than he was when he was standing up.

"So," says Jim, pulling the (half-melted) remainder of the candy from his jeans pocket. "Do you like it?"

Leo raises an amused eyebrow as he accepts the bag. "You say that like you built it yourself. But yes. I do. Don’t _do_ that, it terrifies me," he adds more sharply, as Jim idly picks up a little rock, brown like the cliff, not white like the palace, and tosses it over the edge.

Jim smiles a little at his consternation. "Why?"

"I dunno," says Leo, a bit uncomfortably, forgetting to enunciate. "Just don’t wanna think about things going over the edge. It sets my phobia off." He winces a little as he admits it. Jim wraps his arms around his drawn-up legs and rests his chin on his knees, getting comfortable. It’s so nice up here, close to the sun, warm and windy. He could live here.

"You said you weren’t afraid of heights."

"Well, Jim, it was a _damned lie._ " There’s enough dry self-deprecation in his final drawled words that Jim has to laugh. He’s such a fucking charmer, and Jim doesn’t even understand how. Talking like a cranky old man shouldn’t work on him like that, but it does.

"I didn’t want to force you up here, you know. We could go back down..."

"We’re going to have to eventually," Leo points out, mildly. "But it’s okay. It’s...I like it, actually. I honestly do. As long as I don’t think about falling off."

Jim leans his cheek on his knees, pleased and relieved. "You do?"

Leo nods, gazing out across the water. "Yes. I’m glad you brought me up here, because I sure wouldn’t have come on my own." He looks back at Jim, expression oddly peaceful. "It’s been a really excellent day, Jim. I mean that."

"Aw, well. You should see the magic I can work with a little notice and a real itinerary. We could’ve hit up all the museums -"

Though Jim hadn’t meant it to be provoking or anything, Leo doesn’t like that at all, letting out a derisive snort. "No. No itineraries. I live enough of my life by a schedule as it is. You don’t understand how much I _needed_ to just run around for a while." He leans back on his hands and lets out a long breath. "I’ve always imagined a day where I could do what I wanted and not have to explain myself or justify it t’anybody. Go where nobody can see me and nobody has any crazy expectations of me and just...sit on a rock and be content. Like now." He picks a yellow candy from the bag and pops it into his mouth, clearly and self-consciously signaling the end of his little speech.

This is amazing stuff. Stuff any news outlet would pay big credits for. But that’s the furthest thing from Jim’s mind at the moment. As he looks over at Leo’s face, the profile of his nose and his furrowed brow, his dark hair blowing tangled and utterly unstyled in the wind, what he feels is sadness. He thinks he understands, and yet...he never can. Not really. He could quit his job right now and go play in the ocean all day and though he might lose his apartment and starve to death, nobody would give a damn about it. It would be his stupid decision to make. 

But Leo - Prince Leonard? Today is an anomaly for him, and tomorrow, he has to go back under the microscope and stay there, because his minders sure as hell aren’t going to let him out of their sight again for the rest of his life.

And that’s a damned shame. Because - and Jim’s only known the man for a day, but somehow, he feels the truth of it, deep down, and it hurts him like it’s his own truth - Leo may have been groomed all his life for a uniform and a throne, but he wasn’t _made_ for it.

Jim picks up another smooth brown pebble and warms it in his palm, turning it over and over. He needs to do something with his hands, always, especially now. "I know how you feel. About wanting to get away sometimes."

Leo glances at him, chewing. "You do?"

"My dad was great at what he did. One of the best. He died twenty years ago, at the top of his game, and ever since then, everyone’s been expecting me to live up to him. And what am I now? I left Earth to find myself, but I’m at the bottom rung of my profession, I’m two months behind on my rent, and I consistently disappoint the one guy who ever believed in my abilities. Over and over." Jim closes his eyes and ducks his head. His ears are burning with the admission, saying it all out loud. To a prince, of all people. He doesn’t even know why he’s doing it.

_Don’t think of him as a prince,_ some little inner voice - the one Jim ignores more often than not - says. _He’s just Leo._

"I wouldn’t blame him if he gave up on me," Jim continues, more slowly. "I can’t take myself or my career seriously, ‘cause I know I can never measure up to this monument I’ve built in my head." He lets out a soft snort through his nose, and when he opens his eyes again Leo is staring at him, looking sad. "It’s okay, though," he says quickly. "I mean, I’m getting by, I’ve got friends, I have a good time. Things just aren’t what I thought they might be, that’s all."

Leo doesn’t say anything, just edges closer and wraps a warm arm snugly around Jim’s shoulders.

"Thanks," mumbles Jim after an interval. He isn’t sure what’s going on, exactly, his feelings a swirl of confusion. He’s supposed to be doing an exposé on this man, but - it isn’t coming together in quite the way he’d planned. Shouldn’t he be more worried about that than he is?

"I wish I could help you," says Leo gently.

Jim sighs.

 

The sun is getting lower in the sky, the moons brighter. Leo’s pretty quiet as they clamber back down through the forest, and Jim, sensing his mood, doesn’t try to push him to make conversation. It isn’t until they’re walking across the parking area that he stops Jim with an urgent hand to his shoulder.

"Hey, wait. You’ve got -" Leo touches the underside of his forearm where it had been stinging a little. There’s a two-inch scrape marring the skin, red and angry-looking. It isn’t bleeding, though, so Jim shrugs it off. He doesn’t even remember it happening.

"It’s okay. I’ll put something on it when I get home."

"And let an infection stew for the rest of the day? There should be some medical supplies here." Jim follows him back to the scooter, where Leo pops the seat open and digs around in the storage compartment. "I knew there’d be," he says, sounding pleased, pulling out small first-aid kit. Jim stands, patiently bemused, as Leo with unerring confidence dabs his scrape with disinfectant and healing agent and fits it with a transparent bandage. 

The gentle, sure touch of his hands somehow doesn’t come as a surprise to Jim. "There was bird shit all over those rocks," Leo mutters, mostly to himself, it seems, as he pulls a dinky little hypospray from its protective sleeve and sets about fitting it with a sterile tip. Jim takes a step back, alarmed at just the sight of it. He hasn’t been good with hypos since he’d been stung in the neck by a wasp as a kid - he can’t stop his mind from making the association.

"Uh, I’d rather not," he says, brightly as he can manage.

"There might already be some infection in your system," Leo protests.

"I’m not a big fan of those things."

" _I’m_ not a big fan of _heights._ " Jim makes a face, knowing when he’s beat. "It won’t hurt, I promise. I dose myself with vitamins every day. I know what I’m doing." He pops a capsule in and holds the hypo to Jim’s neck - Jim closes his eyes and flinches for a burst of sharp pain that never comes. Instead, there’s the soft hiss of it discharging, and then Leo’s voice, amused.

"You can open your eyes now, Jim."

Jim reaches up and gingerly rubs his neck, amazed. "I didn’t even feel that."

Leo, already busy packing the supplies back into their case, lets out a soft laugh. "Then I did it right."

"You should be a doctor," Jim says, unthinking, and immediately regrets his momentary brain-slip as Leo’s mouth tightens. He shouldn’t have even mentioned it.

"I don’t think so." He presses the seat closed, then straightens up, all trace of emotion gone from his expression. "We should probably get the scooter back."

"Yeah."

***

Sunset finds them, dinners in hand, strolling along the boardwalk they’d accidentally driven over earlier and looking out on the light-strung barges and boats and floating bars on Suraya Bay. Dozens of people are splashing in the shallows, their pants rolled up past their knees, most of them gazing upward. The moons have already risen to the level of the palace ruins, looming huge over the mouth of the bay and casting enough light that it won’t even matter much when the sun disappears under the horizon.

Leonard finishes the last bit of his sandwich and licks some spicy sauce off his thumb. All the exertion and the fresh air have made him hungry in a way he never usually is, and he’s discovered that grilled vegetables wrapped in flat bread from a roadside cart are more delicious than any gourmet six-course state dinner. He’ll have to find out how to cook things for himself, though he doesn’t think anything he could make in the palace kitchens would ever have quite the same flavor, salted with sea air.

"Ish the fourth day of the Lohlunat Feshtival," says Jim thickly through a mouthful of bread. Leonard’s own planet has three moons, so he’s used to the sight in the sky, though Risa’s moons are larger and apparently closer. The moons had been perfectly overlapped when he’d arrived, one about a third larger than the other, copper and gold-toned like luminescent coins. Now they’re a little over half overlapped. Jim swallows. "The moons are on irregular orbits. The festival happens whenever they ‘touch’ in the sky - something having to do with the sexual symbolism of it, two heavenly bodies coming together and all." He waggles his eyebrows comically, and Leonard snorts.

"That must be what I heard last night, from the em- uh, from where I was," he corrects himself quickly. Jim looks mildly curious as he pops the last bite into his mouth, but doesn’t ask, and for that, Leonard is grateful. "I heard singing, wondered where it was coming from."

"It usually gets wild around the bay at night, but the Lohlunat is the best. It’s my second one." Jim crumples up the paper wrapper from his sandwich and tosses it into a disposal unit as they pass it. "You don’t..." Jim trails off, then inclines his head toward the water, eyes bright. "Wanna go dance?" He holds out his hand. Then he looks down at it, rubs it clean of sandwich residue on his pants, and holds it up again, making Leonard laugh.

When he takes Jim’s hand, it’s different from earlier, when he’d been too wary of the cliffs to concentrate on anything but his fear. Now, he is acutely aware of the way Jim’s fingers curl snugly around his own, like they belong there, their hands made to fit together. "Alright. I mean, I do. Though I make no promises as to my skill level."

Jim grins widely and playfully, his thick brown lashes downcast, eyes focused on their hands. Maybe he’s come to the same realization as Leonard has. Leonard doesn’t want to think, just yet, about what exactly it might mean if he has. "You can’t be any worse than I am. Pick a boat, any boat. We’ll go wherever you want."

_Wherever you want._ Hearing that will never stop sending a thrill right down to the tips of Leonard’s toes.

***

Leo picks the largest and least crowded-looking of the party barges, tethered a short distance out among a dozen other boats. The water is shallow enough in this cove that partiers can pick up their skirts and roll up their pants and wade in or out as they please, so that’s what they do, carrying their shoes, feet sinking into the soft white sand as they splash out. 

The barge is lit with the customary yellow Lohlunat lanterns, blue ones interspersed, and it even has a small sitting area and its own rudimentary bar, though most of the people are out on the cleared dancing space. "Wait here and I’ll go get us something to drink," Jim tells Leo as they slip their shoes back on. He moves off into the crowd, making sure there are a good number of people between the two of them before pulling his comm from his pocket and bringing up Scotty’s code.

_Suraya, biggest barge with blue/yellow lights,_ he thumbs in.

He looks at the words he’s entered. Then he erases the message without sending, types _that’s it for today, thanks, I owe you one_ and sends that instead, turns his comm off, and slips it back into his pocket.

Feeling better, he acquires two little glasses of a sweet red berry liquor, a local speciality, and manages to get back through the crowd to Leo without spilling more than a third of it. The place is jumping, and the rocking motion from the water is just making it more difficult to keep his balance. He takes a quick, burning gulp from his own glass, trying to minimize his losses.

"Accident?" Leo inquires, eyebrow raised, on seeing Jim’s dripping red hands. Jim hands him the fuller glass, then licks the liquor from his fingers, chasing the rivulets down his wrist with his tongue. He hates wasting good alcohol. Leo’s eyes follow his motions, lips barely parted. He hasn’t made a move to take a sip of his own yet.

"It’s good, try it," says Jim, switching hands and licking the other one clean, with a frisson of awareness of Leo’s gaze on his mouth, his fingers. There’s something hungry and anticipatory in it, something that warms him low in his belly even more than the strong alcohol has. "‘Scuse my gross manners," he murmurs.

"It’s okay," Leo says, voice a little strained, as he lifts his own glass to his lips.

When they’ve finished their drinks, Jim takes both glasses and sets them aside on the nearest table. Then he touches Leo’s elbow, hand running down his arm until he reaches Leo’s, lacing Leo’s fingers through his. "I’m a little sticky."

"I hadn’t noticed," says Leo, with a demure little smile.

"Let’s go dance."

They have trouble finding their rhythm. Leo, who is probably trained in formal ballroom, holds his arms stiffly and keeps falling into complex footing patterns, where Jim, strictly a dance-drunk-in-a-club guy, just tends to throw his arms above his head and gyrate on the spot. After Leo’s stepped on his foot and elbowed him in the side a few times and Jim has accidentally slapped him on the ear with a flailing hand, he decides that something must be done.

"Okay," he says, taking Leo’s left hand and placing it low on his waist, almost at the band of his jeans. "Let’s get these out of the way." He puts his own right hand on Leo’s shoulder blade, and laces the fingers of their free hands together, palms touching. "Better."

Leo clears his throat. "Much more manageable." 

They start to sway, tentative at first, gradually working their way up to actual foot movement, restricted though they may be by the press of bodies all around them. Nobody else is dancing this way at all, and they probably resemble an old couple who’ve accidentally wandered into a mosh pit - but with Leo’s chest pressed to his, Leo’s eyes luminous by lantern and moonlight, Jim couldn’t care less what they look like.

"You lied," he says, and Leo cocks his head. "About your dancing. You’re not bad at all."

"I didn’t lie," Leo retorts. "I just said I wouldn’t make any promises." Jim laughs, pulling Leo in a little closer when another couple’s enthusiastically flailing arms come dangerously close to smacking Leo in the head.

"Incoming," he says, touching the back of Leo’s tousled hair. Leo quickly glances back, relaxes like he was expecting something else - Jim could guess, but he isn’t going to think about it now - then carefully angles himself and Jim slightly away without missing a beat, out of harm’s way.

_Prince Leonard knows how to navigate a crowded dance floor with grace -_

No. None of that. When Leo smiles at him, Jim forces himself to smile back, lopsidedly, though inside he’s churning. He doesn’t want to take mental notes on how graceful the prince is or what form of dance he specializes in, what the softness of his hands tells him about the royal lifestyle or how his eyes have flecks in them the colors of the rainforest in the morning, green and gold and amber. He needs this to just be - him, holding someone close, someone he thinks he likes more than he’s liked most people he’s ever met. 

This morning, Prince Leonard was a convenient objective, a celebrity ripe for the picking. But a lot of things can change in twelve hours. If you took away the royal titles and the family name, there would still be a remarkable person left standing there; Jim has spent the day finding that out in increments, peeling the preconceptions away, coming to an uncomfortable but certain realization about it all.

His inner voice was right. Leo is just Leo. And Jim thinks he might be in - something. With him.

He takes a chance and presses his cheek to Leo’s, closing his eyes against the rising tide of guilt and the lump in his throat. Leo tenses for a second, then relaxes, the warm fingers on the small of Jim’s back spreading wide as if to brace and protect him against something, like Jim’s the one who needs comforting when their entire relationship, short as it has been, has been based on his thoughtlessly exploiting Leo for his own gain.

"Thank you for this," Leo murmurs, breath soft against Jim’s ear.

Jim knows for sure, in that moment, that the story is dead. And he doesn’t care.

 

They dance a few more songs. Fast ones, slow ones, ones with no words, ones with words Jim doesn’t understand. It’s going beautifully; with his mental decision made and Leo relaxed and comfortable in his arms, Jim’s heart feels so much lighter. He’s already thinking ahead, to later tonight, to tomorrow, which is something he tries never to do, and something he shouldn’t do considering Leo’s life, but he just can’t help himself.

His thoughts are wild and idiotically romantic and absolutely unfeasible. _We could run away together. Hire a ship, get off the planet, send an untraceable subspace message back to Leo’s family once they were far enough away. I could rig it. But if the spaceport’s being watched -_

Suddenly, Leo stiffens, and he raises his head, which until that point had been tentatively edging its way down onto Jim’s shoulder. He sees something, Jim realizes, coming from the direction of the shore. "What?" Jim whispers, not wanting to make a scene, and Leo’s breath stills.

"We need to leave."

Jim’s mouth drops open, thinking for a split second that Leo’s somehow read his mind. Then he turns them around without letting go of him, aiming to look like they’re just picking up their dancing pace, when in reality he’s trying to get a good look at whatever it is Leo’s seen. There are men in uniform wading out to the barge. They’re not Risan police uniforms - they’re dark, sleek, more formal-looking. They look like younger cousins to the outfit in Prince Leonard’s portrait. "Okay," he mutters, abandoning any pretense of dancing and pulling Leo deeper into the crowd, hoping they haven’t been spotted.

It’s too late, though - another man they hadn’t noticed clambers over the edge of the barge on Jim’s other side and seizes him, while someone else grabs Leonard by the upper arms. "Take it easy," Jim grunts. He is, of course, not new to this sort of thing; he twists and bucks and uses his sharp elbows to good advantage, wrenching himself free of the man’s grip and pushing him into the crowd, which envelops him with laughter and splashing drinks and won’t let him go. Leo is still in his captor’s grasp, watching this; then, after a moment of visible guilt twists his expression, he follows Jim’s lead and shoves back against his captor so hard the guy goes backwards into a table, the crowd parting for him like the Red Sea.

This earns him a round of applause. "I’m sorry," Leo calls, stunned and clearly unable to believe what he’s just done. But as Jim grabs him and tries again to pull him away through the crowd of hooting onlookers, Leo starts to laugh, a little edge of hysteria to it. "They’re not gonna be happy. They’re not gonna be happy at _all_."

The woman and man who’d been sitting at the table sure aren’t happy. The uniformed assailant gets to his feet, warily bracing himself as the man cracks his knuckles and the woman balls her hands into fists - and he promptly goes down again when some misguided and slightly drunk person smashes a bottle over his head from behind. Leo winces.

There’s no stopping what happens next - a huge, good-natured, alcohol-fueled party brawl, the likes of which are never seen anywhere but on Risa when the moons are full and even getting sprayed with broken glass isn’t enough to dampen the festive spirit. Jim grabs Leo and together they duck as much of the carnage as they can, skirting the outside edges of the barge as they run. The boards tilt under their feet, throwing them and everyone around them off balance, and they slam into the rail in tandem. The lines of lanterns sway and bounce crazily over their heads. Someone goes into the water with a massive splash - it’s one of the guards. The crowd has started tossing anyone in a dark uniform overboard. "Get into the spirit," a man hollers, and there’s another splash, followed by a rousing cheer.

"Jim," says Leo urgently, grabbing his wrist. "They don’t mean any harm - if they get hurt -"

"Nobody will hurt them, this is _Risa_ ," Jim assures him as they pick their way through a pile of overturned chairs. "A little embarrassment’s probably good for them. Loosen ‘em up. We gotta get off." He pulls Leo up to the wooden railing and starts to climb over.

"To _where?_ "

"To -" He scans the tree-laden, moonlit hulks of land just offshore. Suraya Bay is dotted with these tiny, rocky islets. Some of them are inhabited, but these ones don’t seem to be. He picks the second-farthest one, the one with the most trees and the fewest boats in the vicinity. "There. We can swim out there, the water’s shallow."

"I don’t swim," Leo protests, even as he swings one leg over the rail. "Ever. Especially at night. It’s too damn dark and dangerous out there."

" _Leo._ It isn’t dark, and the water’s only like six feet deep at the most," Jim promises him, clambering over. "Do they know you don’t swim?"

"Yes."

"Then they’ll think you’ve gone back to the mainland, or to one of the other boats."

Leo hesitates, bites his lip, and nods.

They lower themselves down the slippery side of the barge and into the water as soundlessly as they can. The barges are super-buoyant - out here, the water is still only knee-high, but as they wade farther out, it grows colder and deeper, and soon it’s chin-high and they’re being buffeted by a persistent current that threatens to sweep them off their feet. They keep a tight hold on each other’s hands as they half-swim, half-walk, ducking under for as long as they can and holding their breaths, checking back every few seconds when they surface to see if they’re being followed. It doesn’t matter that they’re away from the lantern light - with the moons so close, it’s almost as bright as an overcast day, and they could be spotted easily by anyone looking in the right direction. They _are_ spotted by a few people who pass by in small boats, some of whom wave at them, but who are on the whole mostly unconcerned with anything but their own fun. They don’t stop or comment. This is Risa. A couple of guys swimming out into the middle of the bay won’t have been the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen, not by a long shot.

"Are there...things living in here?" Leo asks in trepidation at one point, his sentence punctuated with a wet cough. His hair is plastered to his head, his lips trembling visibly with cold, and Jim squeezes his hand reassuringly.

"Nothing that’ll be interested in snacking on humans."

"Oh, good."

"Now, if you were Andorian..."

"Not now, Jim, seriously."

They hit a few deep points, where they can still feel the scraggly tendrils of seaweed but Jim’s toes barely touch the bottom when he drops down to test the depth. His estimation of six feet may have been off by three or four, but he doesn’t tell Leo that, just holds him up when he starts to flail a little, and coaches him through it. "Kick your feet and you’ll stay on the surface. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just kick your feet, keep your arms moving."

"I can fucking _swim_ , I just don’t _enjoy_ it," Leo sputters, sounding anything but princely. Buoyed and half-crazy with adrenaline, Jim wraps his arms around Leo’s middle and impulsively gives him a smacking kiss on his wet cheek, feet paddling hard. Leo goes under for a second in his surprise, then pops back up like a cork when Jim yanks on his shirt, choking on salt water. " _What?_ "

"You’re awesome, I like you," Jim pants. "Keep going, c’mon."

"I don’t _understand you._ "

Jim doesn’t know how long it is before they get there, but eventually, the water grows shallow again and they stumble up onto the rocky sand, coughing and soaked and clumsy from exertion. Risa’s famously warm waters aren’t so warm when you spend long periods of time in them at night, as it turns out. 

"You okay?" he pants, putting an arm around Leo’s waist. The pebbles shift and clatter under their feet as they move, the sound far too loud to Jim’s ears, and he quickly leads them into the trees and behind a cluster of boulders at the tiny beach’s edge, where the sand gives way to overgrown grass and a canopy of thick tree branches gives them some shade from the brilliant moonlight. They collapse there, sitting with their backs to the largest rock and huddling together for warmth.

"Never done this before, I bet," says Jim, teeth chattering. Leo shakes his head with a quavering laugh, his damp nose bumping against Jim’s cheek and his breath hot as steam on Jim’s jaw, raising goosebumps, hardening his nipples into painful points. Every inch of him is prickling and tight and alive, nervous and oversensitized from the adventure and the proximity of Leo’s warm body, wet fabric clinging transparently to muscle. 

He could jump out of his skin. He could do any number of things right now.

"Can’t say I have." Jim turns his head so their noses brush, breath mingling but lips not quite touching. Leo doesn’t meet his eyes. For a minute they stay like that, hovering on the edge, until Leo finally looks up - and when he does, Jim almost wishes he hadn’t, his eyes are so full of undisguised sadness. "Jim, I need to tell you -"

"Don’t," whispers Jim. "You don’t have to tell me a damn thing, Leonard."

Leo squeezes his eyes shut again for a moment, looking pained. And Jim realizes what he’s just called him. "I just wanted to say that...I don’t think I’ll ever have another day like today. And I appreciate that you chose to spend it with me. And -"

Jim can’t stand it. He slides a hand up the back of Leo’s neck, pulls Leo to him and kisses him.

It is not particularly elegant or chaste, like kisses with princes always are in romance flicks. Their teeth clash together in their hunger; Jim’s fingers tangle inextricably in Leo’s wet, matted hair, and Leo’s fingernails score a burning trail up Jim’s half-numb side as his hands rove under Jim’s shirt, palm smoothing up his back in apology, tugging him closer so that Jim’s straddling his legs. But as one of Leo’s hands sneaks down between their bodies and cups Jim’s growing erection through his sodden jeans, the rational part of Jim’s brain chooses that moment to rear up, alarms blaring.

"Wait, waitwait just a sec," says Jim, panting, and Leo instantly flinches away like he’s been burnt, pressing the questing hand to the wall of rock behind his back like he doesn’t trust himself. Jim groans and tries to keep his body from following, chasing after his touch. He does want this, honestly and with no part of Jim-Kirk-the-reporter involved, but on some level, it still feels wrong. Maybe Leo realizes Jim knows the truth about him. Probably he does. But there’s still a chance he doesn’t. "Are you sure about this? I mean, we just met, you don’t really know who I am, I don’t know y-"

Leo takes hold of his shoulders - safer - and kisses him again in answer, hard and burning, like he’s trying to convince Jim without words. Then he pulls back an iota, pressing their foreheads together like he doesn’t want to part from Jim even long enough to speak. "I know you well enough. And if you want it, I want it."

"I - yeah, I do."

"Alright, then."

So matter-of-fact. Jim has to smile, as he backs away a bit to find a good spot in the undergrowth, beckoning to Leo to follow him.

They both know, through unspoken agreement and common sense, that this has to be fast and furtive. Still, Leo sits back on his heels and pulls his shirt off, putting it carefully to the side. Then he undoes each slippery button on Jim’s shirt and pushes the sodden fabric open with a kind of odd reverence, face serious as he smooths his hands down Jim’s sides like he’s made of precious stone, like he’s never touched another human body before. Maybe he hasn’t. Jim doesn’t want to think about it.

"C’mere," he says instead, as he pulls Leo down to him. They roll onto their sides in the thick grass, even more ungainly than their dancing, legs tangled as they kiss. Their movements are clumsy with cold as they get their pants opened and shoved not far down their thighs, and when Jim wraps his hand around both of them, together, he has to muffle a yelp, and Leo hisses sharply.

"Not the greatest idea?" Jim says, shivering, and Leo curls his long fingers around Jim's, urging him into a stroking motion and kissing him again, pressing in with his hips and trapping their hands in a furnace of their own making, velvety damp skin and coarse hair, the water of the bay still dripping down their bellies.

"We'll warm up," Leo murmurs, a low promise.

They do.

***

After, they lie quietly side by side in their nest of crushed grass with their clothes still askew, pressed together from thigh to shoulder, staring up at the moons through the branches. 

Jim laces the fingers of his left hand with Leonard’s right, pulling his arm up and pressing their entwined hands to his bare chest. When Leonard turns his head, Jim is looking at him, lips lusciously bee-stung and his pupils still wide and dark. _I did that,_ thinks Leonard, with a little pang of odd pride.

"Should we go back?" Jim says, voice a little hoarse, certainly more husky than usual.

To the beach, Jim means, but to Leonard his words have an entirely different connotation. Back to the embassy. Back to his ship. Back to his duties.

The question is not really of _should_ or _if_ , just _when._ He knows he’s probably scared his parents half to death with his selfish idiocy. They will have heard of it by now. If he walks in through the embassy doors and finds out his mother has had a nervous breakdown, or his father’s had a heart attack - he’ll never be able to forgive himself. Never. And neither will anyone else. He can’t stay away any longer.

He is trying desperately to force himself not to place too much weight on this whole situation, get invested and entangled. It should be easy to go back. Jim Kirk is not a suitable lover...boyfriend...person for him to have, for so many reasons he can barely even begin to mentally catalog them. He’s a man. He’s from another planet. He’s a commoner. He works in - well, he’d said copyediting, but Leonard is a lot more canny than he’s often given credit for. He’s studied interplanetary politics, war history, and has read about the ongoing civil war on Vestios Prime. Twenty years ago, a journalist from Earth had been killed in the crossfire, sparking much political discussion; the only alien casualty, one of the only foreign team brave enough to travel to Vestios to try and draw attention to the suffering of its people. His name had been Kirk. It's a famous case, as the history of humanitarianism and war journalism goes.

Jim might just be a copyeditor. It’s entirely possible. But Leonard doesn’t think so. He wants to believe Jim has no idea who he is, that he’d just picked him up out of the park and dragged him home and taken care of him because he has a good heart. That he’s done everything he’s done today because he really likes Leonard for who he is, not for _what_ he is or what he could bring him.

But that’s just another form of emotional investment, isn’t it? It shouldn’t matter what Jim’s motivations are or how he feels, because soon, he’ll be gone, and Leonard will never see him again.

 

After a while, they both get up and silently dress, grimacing as they don their still-wet shirts. When they splash back into the bay, the water is warm in comparison and soft as silk, Jim’s hand in his even warmer. Though his muscles have been pushed to their limit today, the swim is easy this time, knowing the feeling of the currents and the shifting weeds under his feet. Quieter, too. It’s very late, and many of the boats have left, the crowds on the barges thinned out, the revelers gone to lie together somewhere under the moons.

It was an ancient celebration he and Jim had enacted, Leonard realizes. A part of the Lohlunat. Technically, he’s had a significant cultural experience tonight.

He smiles dully to himself as he and Jim walk across the cool sand and up the stairs of the boardwalk. Leonard doesn’t know where they’re going, and neither does Jim; they pause at the edge of the pavement, as if it’s some kind of invisible boundary neither of them dares step across first.

Jim stares out across the near-empty beach, swiping at the rivulets of seawater running down his face. "What do you want to do?"

"I..." Leonard hesitates. There’s no way he can now, not with what he’s just noticed across the way, but... "I want to go home with you." Jim’s head turns sharply, face full of hope, mouth slightly open in surprise. "Shower. Sleep with you in your bed and not fall off."

"Okay. Let’s do that." Jim grabs both his hands. "We can do all of that, right now."

"Jim - I said I _want_ to, but I can’t. I have to go." He gently extricates his hands from Jim’s, who lets him, without any resistance, though he looks far from happy about it. "I’ve been away too long as it is."

Jim takes a deep, resounding breath, like he’s trying to steady himself, and nods. "I understand."

As Leonard drops his hands, the ring on his little finger catches the light. He touches it, then slips it off and, lifting Jim’s hand again, places it in his palm and curls his fingers closed around it. It feels like the right thing to do. Maybe there was some cosmic reason he’d been so drawn to the cerulean stone, a reason other than his family colors. Though he still doesn’t believe in things like that. 

"It’s tourist trash. They’ll probably throw it out if they find it," he says, not even bothering to try and disguise anything any longer. Let Jim wonder, let him look at the news and find out if he doesn’t already know - if the puzzle pieces Leonard’s put together in his mind are all just wild, unfounded assumptions. None of it really matters now. "At the very least, I’ll never have the opportunity to wear it again. Keep it for me."

Jim glances up at him, his eyes in the half-light nearly the same deep, rich blue. " _For_ you," he says softly, his voice carrying the barest hint of a question.

"No. Just - keep it, Jim." He lets go of Jim’s hand and backs up a step. "You should go now."

"You’ll be able to find your way back?"

Leonard nods. "I’ll be fine. Just...go first, and don’t watch me go." His voice catches. "Trust me."

Jim stands there, looking unsure. He touches Leonard’s cheek, lingeringly. The glimmer in his eyes looks genuine, and strikes at Leonard, right to the heart. So much for emotional detachment. Then he does as he’s been asked, and he walks away.

 

Leonard waits until Jim’s figure has rounded the bend in the road, disappeared behind a low thatched-roof building. Then he turns and walks directly across the empty street.

Spock is there, waiting for him under a shady palm, ever calm and collected. He holds out something that gleams white - Leonard’s watch, the one he’d given away for a blue drink from a lovely orange-haired lady what seems like weeks ago. "I recovered your watch from an establishment on the Azar boardwalk. I trust the proprietor did not obtain it through violent or underhanded means?" 

"No," says Leonard, as he takes it and slides it onto his wrist again. The tiny metallic _snick_ of the clasp closing is like the sealing of a shackle that has never before felt so heavy, so cold. He barely suppresses a shiver. "How did you find it?"

"The embedded tracking device." When Leonard doesn’t answer, Spock uncharacteristically tries to explain himself, as if he’s uncomfortable and speaking simply to fill the silence. "You must realize that certain subtle measures have always been taken to ensure the safety of your person. Particularly on foreign worlds."

Leonard touches the glass face of the watch. He’s always just thought of it as decoration - it hasn’t ever mattered whether he knows the time or not, because there has always been someone around to get him where he needs to be at precisely the moment he needs to be there. Always will be. No guesswork. 

He wonders if they’ve been watching him the whole time, laughing at his naïveté. If he has a chip implanted somewhere under his skin, so though they might humour him for a day, they’ll never lose him. "Yes, of course. I understand." 

Spock bows shallowly. His eyes are very dark and serious, his expression unreadable. It had taken Leonard a long time to learn to be comfortable with Spock’s constant presence, but now he knows that despite how aggravating he can be, the man is one of the few people in his life he can trust, utterly and always. He was wrong to run, to leave Spock and Nyota to worry. He was wrong to lose himself to the intoxication of freedom and give his heart away, knowing the entire time that it wouldn’t result in anything but bruises in the end. And he won’t do it again.

"I’m ready to go back now," Leonard says evenly, every inch the prince despite his sodden, sand-caked tourist clothes, his damp hair. He squares his shoulders, holds his head high, and lets his hands fall to his sides. The smallest left-hand finger already feels naked. "I deeply apologize for the inconvenience I’ve caused you and the others. You have my word that this situation will never repeat itself."

"I understand," Spock says, after a short pause, and they turn and go. If Leonard had looked back at that moment, he could have seen, standing half-concealed behind a palm, Jim Kirk watching them. And maybe, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

***

When Jim goes to the office the next morning and, very calmly and without a hint of expression on his face, tells Chris Pike that there is no story and there will be no story, he gets pretty much the reaction he’d expected. 

Pike looks at him for a moment with piercing eyes, does his patented lean-back-in-the-chair move. He rubs his slightly stubbled chin, and doesn’t speak, and Jim doesn’t move or break eye contact, mentally willing him to note the dark shadows under his eyes, the rumpled mess of his shirt, the way his hands are shaking ever so slightly, and understand. He hasn’t slept. He couldn’t make himself. He doesn’t know if he’ll sleep again.

"You commed me," Pike finally says, tone unsurprised yet disappointed, "and promised." Jim nods.

"It didn’t work out. I’ll have my stuff cleared out by this afternoon. Thank you for the opportunities you’ve given me."

He turns and leaves without another word. Pike doesn’t call after him. As he moves by Christine’s desk, she leaps up and trails him to the door, putting a hand on his arm as he reaches for the old-fashioned doorknob. Everything is so old-fashioned here, remnants of some bygone time Jim can’t stand being reminded of any longer. He thinks he’ll go somewhere cold, where old stone steps don’t threaten to crumble under his feet every time he walks up to his bed, where the air doesn’t smell of sweetness and plant sap and all doors slide open without having to push or turn a thing. Maybe San Francisco. Toronto. Or even back to Des Moines.

"What’s wrong?"

For once, he doesn’t have a skeezy comeback for her, the likes of which he loves trying out on every woman he knows just to see their eyes roll. She’s probably expecting something along the lines of _I woke up this morning and you weren’t in bed beside me,_ or _you refuse to love me back, that’s what’s wrong,_ but he can’t muster anything up right now but a halfhearted grimace. "Nothing. Just quit."

"Just - that’s not _nothing_ , Jim." Sweet Christine. She’s so dismayed, everything she’s feeling right there on her face and in her big hazel eyes. Reminds him of -

\- he touches her shoulder and turns away, slightly nauseous all of a sudden. "I’ll talk to you a little later, okay? I’ll be back in this afternoon to clear my workspace."

He’s going through his clothes, deciding what to take back with him and what to donate, when his padd, lying on the bed, signals a news alert. It’s from the embassy.

_"Prince Leonard’s staff have been pleased to inform us that the prince is much recovered after yesterday’s medical emergency. He is well enough to resume his usual schedule of appearances, and the meeting with the press of the Risa System will go ahead today at noon."_

Jim erases the prince’s name from his list of alerts, and goes on with his packing.

His door buzzes about half an hour after that, and when he opens it, Scotty’s standing outside, beaming. "Y’hear about the prince ‘feeling better’ this morning?" he chuckles as he steps over the threshold. Jim closes the door firmly behind him with a sigh. "Guess the poor lad wasn’t any worse the wear for all the roughhousing you put him through. I’ve got the pictures, have a look. I sent them to your inbox as well, but I brought prints."

Scotty pulls a bunch of printouts out of his messenger bag and spreads them out on the mattress, and Jim, though it pains him, can’t help but take an interest. They’re beautiful shots, especially considering the size of the camera they came from. Leo sipping tsa with obvious enjoyment. Leo balanced carefully on the scooter in his oversized helmet, then he and Jim flying away down the road, hair wild and terrified-yet-exhilarated looks on their faces. Leo examining a thicket of giant snapdragons, then holding his stomach, face scrunched up in helpless laughter. Leo smiling at nothing in particular, a wayward strand of hair falling into his eyes, with a background of blue surf and blue sky.

Leo and Jim dancing on the barge, the light soft and golden, the fast-moving crowd around them a blur as they gaze into each other’s eyes.

"You were there?"

"Next barge over with Gaila. I couldn't help but take a few more snaps when I saw you dancing...pretty damned good for a device the size of half a bean, eh?" says Scotty cheerfully, either not noticing or not remarking on Jim’s stricken face. "Lookit the resolution on those. You said five hundred creds? I think a little more, even. You pick the ones you want to run with your piece and I’ll shop the leftovers around, does that sound good?"

"Scotty - I’m not doing the piece."

Scotty’s hand hovers, frozen, over a shot of Leo examining some pottery at a market stall. "Sorry? You’re what, now?"

Jim clears his throat. "You took the pictures, so you’re free to do whatever you want with them, but I’m not doing the piece. I can’t."

"Oh, Jimmy." Sitting heavily down on Jim’s bed, Scotty lets out a long sigh and ruffles up his hair in frustration, a habit of his. "Thought you always said a journalist couldn’t let his feelings get in the way. But anyone could see, by that shot..."

"I know, I know." Jim moves over to the window and stares blankly out, not really seeing the low rooftops beyond. "He was...nice. A really nice guy. I liked him. I’m sorry I wasted your time."

"He was. And you didn’t." Scotty’s footsteps approach, the old floorboards creaking under his boots, and he claps Jim gently on the shoulder. "I hope you find somethin’ else, lad. I’m sorry it didn’t pan out for you."

Jim ducks his head and tries to disappear. "Thanks."

"I’ll let myself out, then."

He leaves the printouts on the bed when he goes. Jim gathers them into a neat stack, lays them into the bottom of his traveling case, and closes the lid.

 

Some time later, there is another buzz at his door. Jim had been lying on the bed, thinking, with his padd resting on his chest. "It’s not locked," he calls half-heartedly.

It buzzes again, insistent, so Jim pushes himself up and goes to answer it. When he does, a tall, handsome Vulcan is revealed to be standing on his doorstep, black bowl cut, pointy ears and all. Jim fixes him with a level stare, no pretense of welcome.

"Are you Mr. Jim Kirk?" the Vulcan says, making it sound more like a statement than a question, in that particular way they do.

Jim knows him, dressed in the dark uniform of the barge assailants from last night. He’s the guard Leo had left with, the one who’d stood silently waiting across the road as they’d said their goodbyes. Jim nods curtly, not wanting to be reminded of it. "I am."

"My employer wished for me to deliver this document to you personally. He did not know how to relay a message to you, only the physical location of your residence." The Vulcan proffers a datapad of a different model from Jim’s. "If you would present your own datapad for direct transmittal."

Jim retrieves the padd from the mattress and holds it out. It takes only a split second for the Vulcan to beam the message to him; his padd chimes its usual cheery data delivery signal. Jim looks down at the screen, where _new direct data_ alert is blinking, and when he looks up, the guard is glaring at him with narrowed eyes. His openly critical gaze flicks up and down the length of Jim’s body, as if he’s scanning him, evaluating, finding him lacking in some respect.

Well, Jim always feels shitty enough. He doesn't need a complete stranger rubbing it in. " _What?_ " he grits out, annoyed.

The Vulcan’s left eyebrow twitches. It’s several long moments of nothing but the wind in the trees outside the open door, the traffic noises beyond that. And then - "He is not happy."

Jim’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. After a painfully drawn-out few seconds, during which the Vulcan appears to be expecting some sort of answer, or maybe an apology, he manages to stammer something out. "Neither am I."

The Vulcan blinks once, then leaves, with nothing but the barest inclination of his head.

Jim closes the door and sits down on his bed. He looks at the padd for a moment, the flashing message alert, then opens it up and - it’s an interview. An actual interview. It’s full of questions and intelligent, interesting, well-thought-out answers to match them - about the upcoming Federation vote, about the monarchical system in place on his world and what he thinks about it, about trade and industry and environmentalism, about the hopes he’d had as a child, about the schooling he’d received, about his long and deeply-held desire to study medicine, about galaxy-wide conflicts, favorite foods and drinks, favorite hobbies, favorite music, his inspirations, his role models, his fears. Any and every interview question Jim would ever be able to think of, both deep and frivolous, is there. Anything he ever would have asked Leo had they been able to spend more time together, sipping drinks on the beach, lying on the grass under the stars, entwined under the sheets of a real bed.

There is a short note at the bottom, not in the standard font but in stylus handwriting. The letters are beautifully and gracefully looped, clear evidence of a classical education and lines and lines of practice alphabets, but touches of personality nevertheless shine through - the assertive right slant, the strong, haphazardly placed dots over the i-s and crossbars on the t-s, the way the letters sometimes garland and crowd together as though impatient to be read. A quick, creative mind, Jim recalls reading in a piece on handwriting analysis. It fits him.

"Thank you for my day," it reads, simply. "I wanted to return the favor. Say goodbye to Scotty for me. LHM."

Jim stares at it for a long moment. Then he runs to the closet, drags out the nicest outfit he owns and pins his press badge to his chest, and grabs the first transport downtown.

 

The front courtyard of the embassy, a broad classical structure of pale gold stone more like a fancy country house than a government building, is teeming with journalists eager to get into the reception hall for the conference. Jim manages to insinuate himself into the crowd, flashing his badge whenever necessary. Sulu is there, his own badge properly in place on his questionable plaid blazer. When he spots Jim, his face lights up. "Jim! Hey, nobody knew where you were, so Pike sent me. Christine told me you quit, or something. I told her it couldn’t be true, but she insisted."

"No, I did," says Jim, and Sulu looks confused. "I just needed to come for this. Call it a last hurrah."

"But - where are you gonna go? Back to Earth?"

Jim shrugs. "Maybe. I thought I might go visit my mom. It’s been a while."

"Aw." Sulu bumps him with his shoulder. "That’s nice, really. Sucks you won’t be around anymore, though. You’ll keep in touch? I won’t be on Risa forever, either - maybe we’ll end up working together on Earth."

"Yeah. You bet." An older, formally-dressed man appears at the double front doors, beckoning to them. Jim forces a grin. "Time to go."

The reporters are herded inside and up a green-carpeted path into the vaulted hall, with its tall, narrow windows and views of the sparkling bay. This was what Leo had been talking about, looking down and hearing the people celebrating the Lohlunat far below. No wonder he’d felt the urge to run.

They’re all made to wait behind a roped-off section about fifteen feet from where an elegantly upholstered chair has been set in the middle of a low carpeted dais, several ceiling-mounted spotlights illuminating it. Two guards in midnight blue uniforms are already waiting, hands behind their backs and weapons fully visible at their belts, one on each side of the dais. Neither of them are the Vulcan. But he soon shows up, entering through a small door at the far end of the hall, beyond the chair. He is followed by a long-haired woman in red, whose dark eyes seem to fix on Jim like a homing beacon. Jim gets the feeling she _knows_ something, and tries not to squirm under the scrutiny as she leans up and whispers something to the Vulcan, eyes never leaving him.

Moments after them, Leo - Prince Leonard - appears, hair perfectly combed and slicked down, dressed in his own royal uniform, which includes knee-high boots, a lighter blue sash and belt, and gold trim and epaulets to match his gold diadem. He looks...tall. Magnificent. Formal. Not at all like a man who would dance on a barge, drive a scooter off a boardwalk, kiss a stranger under the moons.

Jim can’t help but wonder if it was all a dream. Maybe he’d just been deluding himself, that whole time, thinking there was something there. He was probably just a plaything, and Prince Leonard was just being kind to him, sending him those answers. Paying back a debt he thought he owed. An interview for a day of fun and a pair of ruined sneakers.

"His Royal Highness Prince Leonard Horatio McCoy," the left-hand guard announces, and the crowd breaks into polite applause, cams flashing. Sulu snaps a few shots in quick succession. Leo stands there a moment to be thoroughly photographed, then takes a seat on the chair. The Vulcan guard and the dark-haired woman, Jim notes, have remained in the background the entire time, in the section of the hall where the lights are dimmed, watching from afar. "The prince will now take your questions."

It’s a free-for-all, but this bunch manage to stay remarkably polite and composed, moreso than a lot of other conferences Jim’s been to where the reporters practically crush each other to be heard. "Cathrina Shepek, Southern Star Daily," a woman calls out. A forest of hands holding comms springs up to record. "Your highness, how are you enjoying your tour of the Federated planets so far?"

"Immensely, thank you, Ms. Shepek," Leo says, his voice warm and measured and very rehearsed-sounding, no trace of the so-called ‘folksy’ accent he’d displayed with Jim. "I’ve been humbled by the kindness of my reception on every planet I have visited thus far, and astounded by the wonderful diversity of the cultures and peoples I’ve encountered. Every place I have been, I wish to return to again in the future."

"Eso Rai, Risa IV news. May I express my happiness that you are fully recovered from your brief illness, sir."

Leo nods graciously. "My thanks, Mr. Rai."

"What do you feel about the proposed Federation plans to immediately begin mining the mineral deposits on your planet, making you the largest known supplier of reactor-grade pergium in the quadrant?"

"I’m glad that my planet can be of help supplying much-needed energy resources to the people of the Federation."

"Do you believe your world is being taken advantage of in this deal?"

"No, I do not, as long as the agreed-upon restrictions are upheld and the harvesting of pergium can be done in a safe and sustainable fashion. It’s for the benefit of my people, as well."

Leo very regally and properly answers the myriad questions put to him, with nowhere near the amount of detail put into the responses in his message to Jim. Most of the questions are about the Federation vote, what he and the king and queen think about things. Some of them are more personal - what has he enjoyed most about Risa, what was his favorite place to visit, does he like space travel, does he plan to do more, do his parents plan to do a tour as well. Through all this, Jim struggles to formulate a question. His mind comes up with nothing. Everything he could ask here, he already knows. Everything else he wants to say, he couldn’t say in front of all these people.

"James Kirk, Terra Newsweb Interplanetary," he says when it’s his turn, trying to keep his voice from cracking. He pushes his way through the crowd to the front, right in the middle. Right across from Leo’s chair. Leo betrays no sign of recognition apart from a certain light in his eyes, a lingering glance. "I don’t have a question." 

"Oh?" says Leo, deadpan. Around Jim, the other reporters murmur, some of them obviously angry that he’s bullshitting around and wasting their valuable time. He doesn’t care.

"I would just like to say -" Jim swallows hard - "That if all the people of your world are as gracious as you, then my home planet - Earth - should count itself as fortunate to have you as a new ally and friend as I feel to find myself in your presence today."

Leo pauses a moment, eyes soft, and nods. "I appreciate your kind words, Mr. Kirk. More than you know."

Jim smiles, and touches the ring on his finger, subtly but where Leo can see. Leo’s eyes fix on Jim’s hand; his plush lips part slightly, like before a word, or a kiss. Then they press together again, curve into a smile, and he nods and moves on. 

"Lhukal Richardson, RSN, your highness..."

The conference ends not long after, and Leonard bows to them all and leaves without a second look.

***

Leonard walks out of the hall, and stops short, like his feet have been glued to the marble parquet. He takes a shuddering gasp, then another. He feels like someone is choking him, cutting off his air. This is probably what a panic attack feels like. It’s ridiculous, that just one short meeting in the presence of dozens of other people could make him so - 

Nyota wraps her strong, slender arms around him and pulls his face down onto her shoulder, stroking his hair. "Calm," she whispers, as Spock swiftly and silently ushers the other guards and embassy staff away. Leonard squeezes his eyes shut, so tightly it’s painful. "It’s okay, Leonard. Just breathe. You’re still on edge from yesterday."

"I shouldn’t have run," he grits out between clenched teeth.

"Shhhh."

"I fucked everything up."

Nyota draws back and takes his face between her hands, looking into his eyes. "I don’t know what happened with him," she says, gently but firmly. "And you don’t have to tell me or anybody else. But life will go on. I promise. You haven’t fucked _anything_ up."

She’s usually right. But he isn’t so sure this time.

He nods anyway. Then he collects himself, straightens his spine, shoulders back, chin up. He takes a deep breath, and clears his mind. "I cannot afford to be emotional," he says. "I have a tour to complete. There is nothing more important than assuring the reputation and future of our planet."

"Let’s go," says Nyota, squeezing his hand.

***

Once he and his retinue have disappeared through the back door, the reporters start to file out, talking on their comms or amongst each other. Sulu says something to him about getting a drink with him and Christine and Mitchell later, and leaves as well.

Jim lingers at the velvet rope, gazing at the empty chair on the dais. He twists the silver ring on his finger in contemplation, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the rounded blue stone. Eventually, one of the embassy staffpersons comes along and tells him he has to go.

Stepping outside into the sun, Jim pulls his padd from the inside pocket of his blazer, calling up a copy of the prince’s interview file. He reads it over once more, rewords several of the questions slightly but doesn’t change Leo’s responses. Some thought has clearly gone into them, even the ones that start out _I can’t say I know the answer to that question, but -_. He comes across as honest, good-hearted, intelligent; a man who might not know everything he wants to know, but is bound and determined to go out into the universe and find those things out, if given the chance. A new kind of royal, for a new era in his people’s history.

After a moment of careful consideration, Jim deletes the exchange about fears. Then, sitting down on the steps and, paying no attention to the people coming and going all around him, looking curiously down at him as they pass by, he composes an introduction, putting every ounce of training and restraint he possesses into the words he types out. He wants to put in secret codes, barely-concealed messages. But he doesn’t.

_...Prince Leonard is that rarest of royals: one whose personality transcends any of his titles, no matter the years of weighty veneration he may bear before his name and on his shoulders. He shakes your hand with a firm grip. He smiles with a real sparkle in his eye. He says what he thinks. He does not go through life with blinders on, but seems to honestly care about what happens in the galaxy, from interplanetary wars right down to someone else’s miniscule personal issues. And when he finally walks away, he leaves you with the feeling that you have just befriended a decent and genuine being. No, Leonard McCoy is not a man easily forgotten - and in the future, I predict he will not be a king easily dismissed as a relic of an outmoded political system..._

He goes into Scotty’s photo files and attaches the simple picture of Leo smiling with his hair blowing in the wind. He thinks Leo would like that shot of himself; it’s natural rather than stiff, and he looks happy. Free. 

He sends the whole thing off to Pike with a note. "Draft of my exclusive. I’m sorry. I’d appreciate any suggestions or revisions you’d like to make. Jim Kirk."

 

Jim gets a response from Pike when he’s strolling through the seaside palm grove later that afternoon, lost in thought. The chime jars him out of his contemplation, and he sits down on one of the benches to open it, a little afraid of what he might find inside. He has to read it through three times before he actually begins to process it.

_Congratulations, Jim. A surprisingly measured introduction, and a remarkably insightful Q &A. I'm not going to ask how you got it. Archer might just have a junior position for you in his political division, if you can impress him in person. What do you think about interviewing in Paris?_

Paris. The capital of the United Earth government, the seat of the UFP, the home of the Terran embassy - the place where official votes on membership take place. The place his father had started his career. 

The last, most important stop on Prince Leonard’s whirlwind tour of the Federation.

Jim, hands shaking, taps out one short message. 

_When do I leave?_

***

_One month later_

 

The council's deliberations take barely a day. The yea vote is overwhelming, as expected, and Leonard and his parents spend that evening toasting to their newly Federated status with the president, a number of his staff, and representatives from a dozen other worlds. The short, loud Tellarite ambassador claps him heartily on the back, which surprises and delights him. At least someone around isn't afraid to touch him. The ambassador from Betazed, a middle-aged woman with a huge cascade of hair, flirts openly with him (which he is quite enjoying until his mother comes over to drag him away). The Vulcan ambassador, Sarek, who also happens to be Spock's father, bids him live long and prosper as Spock glowers in his own way from a corner. There is some kind of story there, but Leonard has never dared to ask Spock how he'd ended up working for a foreign monarchy rather than at a Vulcan university or even in the Federation's Starfleet armada. Perhaps Nyota had had something to do with it, or perhaps not. He hopes that Spock will take the opportunity to patch things up with his father, or at least begin to.

As for him, though, he's done for the evening. Seeing that his parents are deep in conversation with the president, Leonard goes to tell Nyota instead, kissing her on her champagne-flushed cheek. He's had a little champagne himself - not too much, but just enough. "You should go meet Ambassador Sarek," he says to her, "and stop Spock from jumping out the window into the atrium fountain. I'm a little tired, I think I'll head back up to the suite."

"I'll be up in a little while," Nyota says, patting him on the arm. Leonard goes, bowing to every important personage he encounters on his way to the exit, and letting his spine curve and his shoulders slump in relief once the door has slid closed behind him.

 

The sun is setting over western Paris, and Leonard, his crown put safely away, boots off, jacket hanging open over his black undershirt, is once again standing at an embassy balcony, looking out over the city. As a newly-minted Federation citizen, this is his capital, too. He rests his elbows on the balcony railing, for once content to stay and gaze, because the view is spectacular - the rooftops of Old Paris glow in the light, the weathered copper point of the Eiffel Tower thrusting up into the clear sky, contrasting starkly with the silvery skyscrapers and tangles of skyrail tracks beyond, buzzing with ships. He has never been anywhere else where the juxtaposition of the pre-warp era and the present day was so sharp and beautiful, not even on his own homeworld.

From the fifth floor he can see right down onto the broad, ancient avenue below, the surrounding trees bare of foliage. Right now, there aren’t that many people, but one in particular catches his eye: a fair-haired man in a dark suit and coat walking alone, very slowly, hands in his pockets. Leonard lets his gaze linger and his mind wander, guiltily giving into a favorite new fantasy of the past month. _He’s somewhere minding his own business - just walking through the forest, or the stables, or maybe even going into his room, not expecting a thing - and Jim appears, from around a corner, through a doorway, behind a tree. Sometimes, he smiles and says hello. Other times, he just rushes forward without a word. In his imagination, their hands touch first. Then their mouths._

The man looks up, right in his direction, and stops. Leonard straightens, startled, wondering if the man can read his mind, if he's some kind of blond Betazoid.

Then the man raises one hand.

It's Jim. It has to be.

Leonard sucks in a sharp breath, gestures with almost violent force - _down,_ he mouths, pointing to the ground, not even knowing if Jim can see his mouth or not, and Jim starts running. Toward him. He disappears into the trees and Leonard rushes out of the room, past Nyota (" _Leonard!_ Slow down!") and out of the suite, down the carpeted hall. As he runs past several security officers, they raise their communicators to their mouths. He meets several of the council members heading back up to their suites, and ignores them; they press their hands to their chests, scandalized at seeing a prince tearing through the building like a hurricane. He doesn’t have shoes on, only socks, but he doesn’t notice. The turbolift takes ten years to arrive, and fifteen more to get down to the ground floor, where he bursts out into the lobby and races across, skidding on the marble, dodging bodies.

Outside the transparent-paneled doors, he can see Jim coming to him - until he gets closer to the entrance and two guards step in, weapons drawn, and grab him by the arms. Jim flails, surges, is almost knocked off his feet. It's as if Leonard is seeing it in slow motion.

The doors whoosh open.

"Let him go, he's with me," Leonard shouts raggedly, and the guards drop Jim's arms and stand aside, surprised. One of them looks down at Leonard's feet, his flapping jacket with the ribbons hanging off it, but doesn't comment.

"Yes, your highness. Our apologies."

Jim straightens his tie and steps forward into the atrium, eyes warm and bright. "Your highness," he says, and Leonard reaches for his hand. Jim's fingers close and squeeze around his.

"Look at you," Leonard says, still breathing hard, feeling as though his chest might burst with happiness. "You're - you’re on Earth. And you have a suit on."

"You're not wearing shoes," Jim says with a breathless laugh. "Is this some kind of role-reversal thing, or...?"

"I don't know, I don't know."

Jim's free hand comes up to cup his jaw. "I need to say some things to you, Leo. Leonard. To apologize."

"Jim."

"No, I do. That entire time on Risa -"

Leonard grabs Jim by the lapel of his black jacket and presses their foreheads together, just the way he had that night on Suraya Bay. A chorus of gasps floats up from the captivated audience of diplomats and businesspeople and journalists behind him, but Leonard pays them no mind. "It's okay, Jim. I knew." Jim's eyes widen for just a second, a brilliant flare of blue, but when Leonard tips his chin up and kisses him gently, they drift closed.

" _Leonard,_ " says a sharp voice, and Leonard pulls away and looks around. Everyone is staring - the attendants at the front desk, the guards at the door, the people passing by up on the second and third floors. King David and Queen Eleanor are there, still in their finery, looking thunderstruck. Spock and Uhura trail after them, seeming less surprised. It had been Leonard's mother who had spoken, and who speaks again now. "What is going on here?"

Leonard chews his lip for a second - a thoroughly un-royal habit - then slides an around around Jim's waist and presses their cheeks together. This is his arena now, and he's the one with the power to protect Jim from whatever they might think he's done. He needs to make them see what this means to him.

"This is Jim Kirk," Leonard says, pleading with his eyes, and his parents exchange a glance. Spock steps forward and murmurs something to the king, which provokes a look of dawning awareness. He murmurs to the queen, who looks to Nyota, who nods. They know Leonard had run away for a day on Risa, had tried to talk to him about it with little success. Now, they probably have their suspicions as to why he's been so quiet the past four weeks. "It's fine," Leonard assures Jim in a low voice. "Breathe. They haven't had you arrested, that's a good sign."

"Comforting thought," mumbles Jim.

"Jim Kirk of Risa, I presume," says his father, straightening to his full and considerable height and crossing his arms. Jim shakes his head.

"Jim Kirk of Earth, actually, your majesty."

His father humphs. "Well. Jim Kirk of Earth. I s'pose you'd better come up." He turns and strides off to the lift, Spock attending him. Jim takes one step, then stops and looks at Leonard, and Queen Eleanor takes Nyota's arm, then beckons to them in her elegant way.

"Come along, boys. I see we have some talking to do."

"I think we'll be alright," Leonard whispers as they follow her, and Jim smiles tremulously.

"I trust you," he says.

***

The Federation vote is the lead story in all news outlets the next day. Prince Leonard McCoy and James T. Kirk make the third page - Terra Newsweb boasts a gorgeous shot from one Montgomery Scott that sends all the other agencies into a bidding war over the rest of the set. The prince balances astride a silver scooter on a cobblestone road, Jim Kirk on the seat behind him, his front pressed to the prince's back, his hands sitting comfortably on the prince's waist. Both of them wear bright looks of anticipation. No magnificent white steed or magical pumpkin-turned-carriage could be more apt.

_PRINCE CHARMING FINDS PRINCE CHARMING_ , the headline reads. _HAPPILY EVER AFTER?_

Might be.

***

end.


End file.
